Disciplinary Hearing - Advice Needed

christaitfife

If the company has an IT Policy (and I am sure it will), it will likely help him understand exactly where he has fallen foul along with likely outcome.

Ultimately it is misconduct no matter what "it was only..." he uses. It will be up to the disciplinary hearing to decide the scale of misconduct and what the outcome will be. If someone has found the joke to be offensive or in poor taste punishment may be more severe than just a verbal warning. I don't know the company, but places I have worked have rewarded IP policy breaches (no matter how small) with a written warning.#

I would suggest getting in touch with his union (if he is in one) would be a wise step. They will be able to provide details of likely outcomes and offer legal assistance if needed.

fozzeh

robatwork wrote: »

One man's banter is another man's bigotry.

Perhaps you can paste in what your colleague emailled, redacted as necessary. Then you can get an honest opinion on if this is more serious than just a bit of misuse of resources.

From manager X "Well done to Dave for doing lots of hard work over the past 2 weeks". Copies in team of 30, including Bob.
Dave "It's all in a days work, X, all in a days work"
Bob to Dave and 4 others including manager X - "Nice bit of brown nosing there Dave!"

That was it :rotfl:

Moneysaver199

To be honest I think it would have been worse if the email had been ABOUT Dave, rather than TO Dave. It's not like he was !!!!!ing behind his back, just having a bit of fun. Obviously assuming that Dave took it as a bit of fun and would be known to do so.

I don't think that makes it ok though, he probably shouldn't have been joking via email like that, could be classed as misuse of email, maybe even more seriously the manager may now think that Bob has a bit of an attitude problem, ie he thinks that doing a good job is something to poke fun at. All depends on the audience really and how they interpret it. Risky business.

robatwork

I would probably let this go if I was X, pretty light hearted and obviously meant as humorous (the exclamation mark was important).

However I'd shut down the "banter" group and keep it to outside of work.