Sent home / Garden Leave - Legal?

bugslet

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?

They aren't allowing it; someone has raised a grievance/complaint and they have acted as soon as they found out. They are not bullying the OP. Either the alleged bully or the person being bullied (allegedly) is often put on garden leave whilst an investigation is carried out.

I'm wondering if the OPs employer could argue duty of care? Claiming that they were concerned for the OPs safety, but at that point lacking evidence until an investigation was completed, could not put the alleged bully on garden leave because that would infer that they thought he was guilty? I have no idea on that point.....just musing out loud. It seems whichever way there is an arguement to be made.

Sangie's post is excellent ( as usual ). We had a claim of bullying from a staff member and we put the alleged bully on garden leave whilst we investigated. Both parties had the same job title.

As sangie says, it's often one person's word against the other and it is very very difficult to investigate. It cost us a lot of money to defend as ultimately it went to tribunal and frankly if ever there was a situation like that again, I'd be inclined to shut the business down rather than go through it again, even though it was completely right to do so.