Sent home / Garden Leave - Legal?

Undervalued

Caratax wrote: »

That's it then. At home I languish.

Frankly, it won't end there. Legal advice will be sought.

Thank you all for responding.

Maybe, but wait until you know what your employer is proposing.

At the moment you have made a complaint / grievance about "bullying" and your employer has asked you to stay at home on full pay whilst they investigate. So far they have behaved impeccably.

stator

Make sure you get everything in writing. Try to avoid acting on any information they give you over the phone. You want to a record of everything.
Try to stay calm and impassive.
Don't make any hot headed decisions you might regret later.
If in doubt, delay. Ask to think about anything they propose, consult your legal advisor etc, or just sleep in it etc etc
If you have any friends at work you might want to keep abreast of the situation via them, but nothing they say would be relevant so take it with a pinch of salt.

newwave19

Sounds like a great workplace, not only are they allowing bullying in the workplace by not investigating, but they are now effectively bullying you too. A pay off is maybe an easy way out for them, but effectively penalising you (as at the end of the day, you will have given up your job), and will have to look for a new one.

Was the complaint about one of the managers, or a colleague?

Undervalued

newwave19 wrote: »

Sounds like a great workplace, not only are they allowing bullying in the workplace by not investigating, but they are now effectively bullying you too. A pay off is maybe an easy way out for them, but effectively penalising you (as at the end of the day, you will have given up your job), and will have to look for a new one.

Was the complaint about one of the managers, or a colleague?

Sorry but how exactly are they doing that?

So far they have, at significant expense, asked the OP to stay away whilst they investigate the allegation. As I read it any suggestion of a pay off / settlement agreement is speculation on the part of the OP. If and only if they do ultimately go down that route then the OP can consider their options. They will have to receive independent legal advice which is normally at the employer's expense.

Takeaway_Addict

newwave19 wrote: »

Sounds like a great workplace, not only are they allowing bullying in the workplace by not investigating, but they are now effectively bullying you too. A pay off is maybe an easy way out for them, but effectively penalising you (as at the end of the day, you will have given up your job), and will have to look for a new one.

Was the complaint about one of the managers, or a colleague?

Utter rubbish

Caratax

newwave19 wrote: »

Sounds like a great workplace, not only are they allowing bullying in the workplace by not investigating, but they are now effectively bullying you too. A pay off is maybe an easy way out for them, but effectively penalising you (as at the end of the day, you will have given up your job), and will have to look for a new one.

Was the complaint about one of the managers, or a colleague?

Your sentiment, I appreciate. The protaganist? A superior.

Takeaway_Addict

Caratax wrote: »

Your sentiment, I appreciate. The protaganist? A superior.

What superiors can't be bullied?

patman99

Seaking proper legal advice is actually a good idea.

I would not except a pay-off, but would expect the protagonist to either be demoted or dismissed.

Meanwhile, enjoy your paid 'leave'.

ERICS_MUM

Do you have a copy of your company's bullying policy ? Are they following it, i.e. Completing the various steps from when you raised it ?

sangie595

patman99 wrote: »

Seaking proper legal advice is actually a good idea.

I would not except a pay-off, but would expect the protagonist to either be demoted or dismissed.

Meanwhile, enjoy your paid 'leave'.

What you would expect is neither here nor there. Demotion is, with the exception of a very few employment and subject to specific contractual terms, not a lawful disciplinary outcome; and dismissal does happen, but not all the time.

I will not comment on the situation of the OP directly because there is nothing in evidence about their allegations, but, as a general rule, bullying allegations are some of the most difficult for employers to resolve; and that is assuming that an employer has no other considerations to make. In the first place, it is not uncommon for bullying allegations to be made because employees do not like the way the are being managed. Performance management processes, for example, often give rise to such complaints. Just because someone feels bullied does not mean that they are being - and it is entirely possible for people to feel genuinely that they are being bullied, when they are, in fact, not being.

Then there is the question of evidence. Where bullying occurs, it is often one person's word against anothers, and that leaves the employer in a position of not being clear who to believe. In such circumstances you are potentially damned either way. And weight of numbers is not always a good indicator either! It isn't uncommon for groups of staff to resent the way a new manager manages them, and this can lead to allegations of bullying when, in actual fact, the new manager is generally doing exactly what the employer recruited them for, and managing differently.

There are lots of ways in which people can genuinely feel bullied, but are not actually being bullied. And it is even possible that some complainants are actually the ones doing the bullying. As in that last example, sometimes collective complaints of bullying are actually a knee jerk reaction to not liking the way a manager manages , and are attempts to bring the manager down - which is itself a form of bullying!

Then there are reasons why someone may bully - a manager or colleague stress may act out of character, and the employer may know this is the case. Or it may be that the person does not know how to act differently and requires support our training themselves.

It is certainly not black and white. Yes, bullying, where it exists, should be dealt with. But there is no "one size fits all" answer; and an allegation of bullying does not make it true. Both sides need to be given proper consideration. And finding that someone is not a bully, or that there is no evidence of it, does not mean that the employer is bad.

And all that is before you even begin to consider other things. In the case in question, it is relatively unusual for an employer to rush to an offer of settlement. If absolutely nothing else, that would suggest that it is clear where the employees values lie - the employer isn't going to offer to pay off someone they have any interest in retaining. So no matter what the outcome of a complaint, that would have to be a consideration.

It may even, at the other extreme, be the fact that there is a culture of bullying which the employer colludes with. In such circumstances it is often difficult to win because the odds are stacked - there is often no corroborating evidence and nobody who will hear it fairly.

There's a huge selection of possibilities in any allegation of bullying, and unraveling them is far from easy. So simply expecting an outcome that is in one's favour is simply not realistic. And it also may not be fair. Certainly saying that definition or dismissal are the only acceptable outcomes to any bullying allegation is unreasonable.