Can anyone help with a legal question?

sangie595

Undervalued wrote: »

Doesn't follow at all. Yes, some HR departments take this super cautious approach but not all by any means. However we don't know here if it is a big enough company to even have an HR department let alone what their policy is.

And in some sectors this definitely is a bad reference! I recall many years ago being in the position of having an employee whose probation I determined to not confirm (she was a nightmare!). During her notice period she obtained another job with a neighbouring local authority. On the advice of HR I gave a dates only reference, assured that this would result in a phone call because that always meant that the employee in question was awful! They didn't phone. Until six months later when they were also considering terminating her probation, to ask me why the hell I hadn't warned them how bad she was!

Mersey_2

sangie595 wrote: »

I recall many years ago being in the position of having an employee whose probation I determined to not confirm (she was a nightmare!). During her notice period she obtained another job with a neighbouring local authority.

Sadly, the local government merry-go-round is a particular problem - although more so amongst Directors.


Thankfully the CSE Inquiry after Rotherham is at last seeing that they don't just move to another council doing the same job. Although the Chief Exec of Liverpool City Council seems to have escaped this so far (he's the one remaining of the 9 then in post during Rotherham who's still a senior Officer in local government).

sortofwinning

missbiggles1 wrote: »

As was pointed out in one of your earlier threads, your employer is unlikely to give you a bad reference if they want to get rid of you.

I do agree with that Miss Biggles but I did explain that my employer would have one good reason to want to keep me on ie we are regulated by UKAS, UKAS hate anomalies (any minor or major mistakes we do), we have already been reprimanded by UKAS for the number of anomalies on my team in particular, and it's the new people who have the most anomalies, and the "longer serving" (four years in my case but that's very long in the place I work) members of staff like me who have the least.


I do agree that, yes, I could end up antagonising the management instead of scaring them, but unfortunately for the management, I have evidence that they knew about the bullying and they covered it up. I have also been in touch with the police, I told them about the management covering the bullying up, and they were the ones who told me to get a solicitor involved. They told me that once a solicitor gets involved, if the bullying continues afterwards, I can phone the police back and they could get involved at that point. I am quite willing to tell the management that I have been in contact with the police and that the police will get involved if necessary, and I think this may shake them up a bit.


I know some of you are saying you employ people and you would be annoyed by a solicitor's letter, but that's because none of you are lying to cover up workplace bullying and thinking you can get away with watching one of your employees having two nervous breakdowns caused by the bullying that you are well aware is going on.


So yes, I'm taking a risk but if anyone remembers the earlier posts I made, and Miss Biggles for one does, I mentioned self employment. I'm now in a position of being potentially self employed. I don't want to be self employed, I would much prefer a regular job, but I have the self employment if it all goes pear shaped. And I actually don't have much choice in getting a solicitor involved now. These people have bullied me into having two mental breakdowns and unless I do something to stop it - either force the management to act or get out of the company - I could be heading for a few more of them. The management are not going to act unless I take legal action. I told them all about the bullying when it started and they covered it up.


I do have the resources for legal action myself but would have to dip into savings. My mum is a lot more comfortably off and she suffered with anxiety a lot during my breakdowns and she'll do anything to get me out of that place, so she's quite happy to pay my legal fees.


Micky2phones, I did consider a tribunal but changed to a threat of a lawsuit instead.


Thanks again for everyone's advice, I'll maybe try again and jostle my solicitor along tomorrow.

Malthusian

sangie595 wrote: »

And in some sectors this definitely is a bad reference! I recall many years ago being in the position of having an employee whose probation I determined to not confirm (she was a nightmare!). During her notice period she obtained another job with a neighbouring local authority. On the advice of HR I gave a dates only reference, assured that this would result in a phone call because that always meant that the employee in question was awful! They didn't phone. Until six months later when they were also considering terminating her probation, to ask me why the hell I hadn't warned them how bad she was!

So in other words you thought it was a bad reference but the employer you were trying to warn off interpreted it exactly as I thought it would be, i.e. a neutral reference.

I always appreciate your expertise, Sangie, but as the applicant it's the person offering me the job whose interpretation matters to me, even if their interpretation is wrong

As I mentioned, if I was in this position I don't know what other kind of reference my second-to-last employer could give - they will be able to confirm I worked there but no-one will remember me as it's been too long and my line managers lost their jobs at the same time I did. I volunteer but as I don't have anyone in a position of seniority to me in that organisation, and my co-directors are personal friends, I doubt that would be valid. (Apologies to the OP for the tangent.)

sangie595

Malthusian wrote: »

So in other words you thought it was a bad reference but the employer you were trying to warn off interpreted it exactly as I thought it would be, i.e. a neutral reference.

I always appreciate your expertise, Sangie, but as the applicant it's the person offering me the job whose interpretation matters to me, even if their interpretation is wrong

No. I didn't think it was a bad reference. HR thought it was because the industry norm (and this was for us and the new potential employer) is to give detailed references. I didn't and was going to write a truthful reference. That would have been a bad reference! I was young at the time. These days I would have told HR to sling their hook.