Manager lying in order to Dismiss me

sangie595

It certainly is a long shot. This is an individual matter and the interference of this charity is likely to go against you. You had no right to contact them and complain about your employer. It is not their business. As I said, this could easily lead to a "bringing the company into disrepute" allegation, and that would in fact be true!

ohreally

Op, what good do you think may come from all this?

xapprenticex

Paton147 wrote: »

2) The charity that are helping me have contacts in HR that may feel angry to learn of how I am being treated. Its one central HR team for a 30,000 employee company. So there is a chance HR might be miffed managers are abusing policies.

Its a long shot.

IMO you've shot yourself in the foot, with a shotgun. Very naive.

Paton147

I appreciate the advice people are giving, but only I can really vouch for the air of inevitability that has surrounded this matter.

Originally upon suspending me, my manager said that if I were right and there had been no requirement for me to declare my conviction then he would be ringing me later in the week to arrange a back to work interview. He learnt of my conviction while I was on annual leave, so why didnt HR confirm all of this prior to me returning? I didnt need to be suspended.

After I sent a robust defence of that allegation, he reissued the suspension letter but then with 'Dishonesty, namely lying about a reason for leaving a previous employer'. Why upon being satisfied that I didnt have to disclose the conviction, did the investigation then turn to another unfounded accusation? One only he could accuse me of.

I just feel that had he been supportive of me returning to work, then when he recieved my evidence supporting their being no disclosure, he should have sought to help my back to work. Not make a further accusation and progress the discplinary process.

I tried so hard to impress him because I appreciated the opportunity so much. I took work home, created some policies and procedures for things we did to help other people in the team. I worked considerably more than my contracted hours, on one occasion I worked 6am till 6.30pm. On several occasions he was very positive about bits of correspondance I had been involve in and how I had stemmed complaints and managed to resolve particular problems.

Theres just a real sense that he's washed his hands of me. Not answering calls and emails, and escalating the process rather than attempting to resolve it amicably.

I can speak to the charity on Monday and ask them to hault any intervention. I can also let my manager know that I contacted a charity and union for support. I guess I can only go to the forthcoming investigatory meeting and give as compelling evidence as I can to support why I didnt lie about previously been dismissed.

(My CV doesnt have reasons for leaving jobs. It just has a timeline of posts and duties, I thought this was conventional).

custardy

Paton147 wrote: »

I appreciate the advice people are giving, but only I can really vouch for the air of inevitability that has surrounded this matter.

Originally upon suspending me, my manager said that if I were right and there had been no requirement for me to declare my conviction then he would be ringing me later in the week to arrange a back to work interview. He learnt of my conviction while I was on annual leave, so why didnt HR confirm all of this prior to me returning? I didnt need to be suspended.

After I sent a robust defence of that allegation, he reissued the suspension letter but then with 'Dishonesty, namely lying about a reason for leaving a previous employer'. Why upon being satisfied that I didnt have to disclose the conviction, did the investigation then turn to another unfounded accusation? One only he could accuse me of.

I just feel that had he been supportive of me returning to work, then when he recieved my evidence supporting their being no disclosure, he should have sought to help my back to work. Not make a further accusation and progress the discplinary process.

I tried so hard to impress him because I appreciated the opportunity so much. I took work home, created some policies and procedures for things we did to help other people in the team. I worked considerably more than my contracted hours, on one occasion I worked 6am till 6.30pm. On several occasions he was very positive about bits of correspondance I had been involve in and how I had stemmed complaints and managed to resolve particular problems.

Theres just a real sense that he's washed his hands of me. Not answering calls and emails, and escalating the process rather than attempting to resolve it amicably.

I can speak to the charity on Monday and ask them to hault any intervention. I can also let my manager know that I contacted a charity and union for support. I guess I can only go to the forthcoming investigatory meeting and give as compelling evidence as I can to support why I didnt lie about previously been dismissed.

(My CV doesnt have reasons for leaving jobs. It just has a timeline of posts and duties, I thought this was conventional).

I wouldnt mention the charity at all.
You say you contacted 'the' union. Was this as a paying member?

Paton147

Ive been a member of a union thoughout my career. The union rep was great and offered lots of advice, but he felt that given I have only been with the company for such a short time, the company could push for dismissal leaving me no means of challenging that.

I put together a pretty comprehensive list of reasons to support my account of the recruitment process and why I wasnt asked about dismissal. I wont be offended it people offer changes/additions as I need all the help I can get.

Ive change my attitude a little bit, and intend to just go into the investigatory meeting and try to build a solid argument for why they have miss-understood me. (I should refine it and add reasons why I can rejoin the team and be a positive asset).

So far Ive got,

1. CV and Cover letter clearly showed / referred to last few years being agency work.
2. Interview was compentency based, questions did not lend themselves to specific jobs/reasons for leaving.
3. Interview panel did not discuss my CV and ask questions such as, “I can see you were that company for for 11 years, why did you leave”?
4. Lying about dismissal could be perceive as covering up a criminal offence which is a serious, potentially illegal action. I would not do this.
5. I was familliar with my duties/legal obligation to disclose. ie. Advice from charities.
6. I had drafted a disclosure letter and prepared responses to such questions that had come up from time to time.
7. No financial gain from lying to secure this job. Only marginally better pay but far more travel and contractural hours.
8. My CV / job prospects were finally in good shape with the conviction behind me and a solid reference from my current employer. Why leave a secure job on the basis of a lie, and therefore completely jeopardise career again.
9. My own well being. I had become a father and was feeling positive about my future. I was comfortable in my previous job which was closer to home and great for work/home balance.
10. No pressure to change employment, I could have simply waited a matter of months until the conviction was spent, and then the jobs market would open up to me fully.
11. The post I have with the current company is a few levels lower than my career was in the past. Again, waiting a few months till conviction was spent would mean I could focus on better paid jobs at a level I had worked at in the past.
12. I can evidence being honest / disclosing the conviction in all other job applications that specifically asked me to do so. I have emails/applications sent to other companies around the same time that had tick boxes/comments for you to enter unspent convictions in and I completed them honestly.
13. I was simply never asked during the recruitment stage, or in the early months of employment about my role 2 years ago. I was never asked why I left so I never had to explain it.
14. Inspite of losing my good job 2 years ago, I still entered them as a referee even though I had no obligation whatsoever to do so, and I knew it could flag up the dismissal. I had been given an excellent reference by them to get back into work, but could have omitted them from my application to reduce the chance of them learning I was dismissed.
15. Im an honest person that would not jeopardise my families future to move to an only marginally better paid job, albeit in the career I love.

Paton147

sangie595 wrote: »

It certainly is a long shot. This is an individual matter and the interference of this charity is likely to go against you. You had no right to contact them and complain about your employer. It is not their business. As I said, this could easily lead to a "bringing the company into disrepute" allegation, and that would in fact be true!

I can understand that view.

My company are effectively a champion for the charity. Lots of positive press and media releases prompting one another. My company are credited as drafting the practice guides the charity ask members adhere to.

Thats why in desperation, I contacted the charity to explain my own company had suspended me and made accusations about my offence when it should have been no interested to them whatsoever.

Paton147

ohreally wrote: »

Op, what good do you think may come from all this?

I'd love to just quit and go back to my old job. But now that Ive worked with this company, I have to put them on future job applications. If I dont, theres the risk of losing jobs in the future in this industry because you regularly work with one another.

To have only worked there for a few months and then been dismissed will seriously damage my career prospects.

jobbingmusician

OK. Let's focus.

The whole title of your thread shows that you probably don't understand what is going on. The manager is unlikely to be lying in order to dismiss you. S/he is far more likely to be lying to protect their own skin. They should have asked you about your previous history, and they didn't.

The reason I'm pushing this point is that you have to be very clear about what you want and have a strategy about getting that. Presumably your first choice is to keep your current job, your second choice is to leave your current job under conditions that don't imperil future employment, and your least preferred option is to be dismissed from this job with a reference which impacts future employment.

In order to achieve option 1 or 2 you have to leave your manager with a get-out clause. Simply going head to head, each with a different version of what was said, isn't likely to get you far.

I think I would start by writing something down - a statement that you might want to express to your manager. Something along the lines of:

in my interview for this post, I was delighted that the work I had done since my work at [x, the place you were dismissed from] seemed to count for a lot. I assumed it was because of this intervening work that I wasn't asked about my reason for leaving x. If I had been asked, I would have been quite upfront about this - I have been to other interviews and been completely open about my reason for leaving. I was also delighted to be working for you because of your reputation in giving people with a criminal record a second chance.

I am now in the horrible position where I have not deliberately concealed anything from you, but am at risk of losing this job with a poor reference because I was not asked about the reason for leaving a previous job - not the job immediately before this, but one in the past. I'm sure you can see that this is compounding the problem for me. Is there anything I can do to work with you on this, as I'm sure you will agree that another scar on my CV is the last thing I either want or deserve?

That isn't the most fantastic letter I've ever written, but maybe someone else on here can help to tidy it up and improve it?

Paton147

I'm going to adopt this strategy. Thanks!

I will post later in the week with an update, but in the meantime I will draft a statement for the meeting.