Unfair dismissal - HELP PLEASE

BrassicWoman

Poor sales performance may not be a conduct matter

Taking extra breaks may well be

StarwarsSloth94

I appreciate your opinion, however I feel that its been formed without the full information. In my job I received anywhere between 30 and 70 emails a day. Even at the lower end of 30, over a 3 month period that totals 1,800 emails received. 30 missed mails is equal to 1.66 percent failure rate based on 30 emails a day and not a figure anywhere between and up to the max of 70 in which case the failure rate would be lower.

The process of responding (quoting) on the emails also hasn’t been taken into account.
Customer would ask for a quote for a part. I would then have to
a) Check if the part was in stock. If yes then
b) Check that part was the quality/grade the customer required.
c) Check if the customer had purchased the part previously and if so at what price
d) Check if the other sales execs had sold that same part to anyone else and if so at what price.
e) Check other suppliers to see if they were selling that part and at what price
f) Calculate an average price based on all the above.
g) Inform the customer of price and predicted delivery times

If the part wasn’t in stock then I would have to

a) Check if the customer had any suppliers they did not wish parts to be sourced from, ie those who only dealt with unbranded parts.
b) Check if other sales execs had bought the part from outside and at what price
c) Check if the part could be sourced from another supplier and at what price
d) Calculate the sales price based on the above.
e) Inform the customer the price and expected delivery times.

It may be an assumption from the employer that I reply/action all, but that does not make it a reasonable assumption. It is also reasonable as an employee that I am aware of the employers’ assumption and that it is at least achievable.

I also did say in my original post that I have had no training in this role and was just thrown in at the deep end. I never initially wanted this job, my skills are technical and programming. I was moved into the position as part of a company reshuffle with the veiled threat if any of us didn’t like it, we could leave.

NIcechap_3

StarwarsSloth94 wrote: »

Hi,

I would be very grateful if anyone can provide advice and guidance on what my next step needs to be with this issue.

I have worked for the same company for the last 5 years, and in this role for the last 2. I was put in this position during a company reshuffle. This was the second company reshuffle I had been subjected to. No formal training has ever been given for the sale position, I was just thrown in at the deep end. My job title was Account executive but the job was basically sales, although not typical sales role as should items requested not be in stock then those had to be sourced, bought and priced in order to supply our customers, and those items in stock did not carry a standard price to be quoted to customers.

Approx 5 weeks ago while on booked annual leave, I received a letter of Suspension pending disciplinary investigation. The letter stated I was suspended from work until further notice pending investigation into an allegation of gross misconduct. The allegation is poor performance.

The letter advised me that I had been placed on suspension on full pay. The letter stated that this suspension did not constitute a disciplinary hearing and did not imply any assumption that I was guilty of any misconduct. This came totally out of the blue as I had not been given any indication in the days, weeks or even months leading up to this that there may have been an issue or concerns that my work was not up to standard.

A disciplinary hearing was arranged for 2 weeks later. At this hearing the managing director was accompanied by the financial director and they produced the following evidence, none of which I was aware of prior to the meeting or had time to examine or consider.

1) Approx, 30 emails taken from my company email inbox covering a 3 month period, which the MD said proved that my performance was inadequate.
2) A list of days/times over a week time frame that the company say I took additional breaks outside of my allowed allowance.
3) Reported that other staff members had made anonymous complaints, verbally, regarding length of break times.

Summary of findings were,
Ignoring emails and requests from Account customers
Failing to update clients with ETA’s (on deliveries)
Ignoring quotation requests for parts.

During the meeting I raised a number of issues and asked for further information and evidence.
1) The number of emails produced to evidence poor performance did not reflect my performance, and was a small percentage of the emails received on a daily basis.
2) That the list of break times produced did not show times of allocated breaks taken but listed the alleged additional breaks as Lunch break and Afternoon break.
3) I requested data on total amount of emails received in the 3 month period leading up the the suspension in order calculate the percentage of mails not responded to.
4) CCTV imagery showing referenced during meeting be made available to support the company allegations of additional breaks.
5) Requested information how performance was measured given that the role did not have any targets
6) Copy of the minutes of the meeting.
7) That should the company rely on the complaints of others then the complaints should be logged formally in writing. If not then they should be withdrawn
8) Asked the Managing director for an explanation why the company disciplinary procedure was not followed before initiating investigation and suspension

The Managing Director took the decision to extend the suspension for a further 7 working days in order to provide the information that I had requested, including the minutes of the meeting, written confirmation of the extension to the suspension to include, reasons for, length of and procedure after, and to further investigate the issues I raised. However I felt the Director was dismissive and uninterested generally. No disciplinary action was taken at this meeting. I learned shortly afterwards from a colleague that my position within the company had already been filled.

On closer examination of the emails provided by the company to evidence poor performance and ignoring emails from account customers, it appears the documents provided may not be printed direct from the email inbox. At least one of the emails provided as evidence of poor performance clearly has parts missing. The customer response indicated that additional information was requested but the request (from me) was not included in the email string. This throws doubt in my mind that the rest of the emails may not have been provided in their entirety.

During the 9 days since the meeting I had no contact from my place of work until I received an email from my pension provider that I was no longer a part of the company pension scheme.
As my suspension was completed I contacted my employer to find out what the current position was to be informed that a letter had been sent out but on checking the tracking details had been sent to the wrong address. After the email from the Pension company I believe that I have been dismissed.

I believe that my dismissal may be unfair. The company has not followed their own disciplinary procedure and by not doing so has treated me unfairly. The allegation of poor performance has not been proved as the role did not, and never has had targets to measure performance. The issue of performance seems to be an arbitrary one.

I am happy to answer any additional questions.

Many Thanks

Did the original letter suspending you actually state the allegation was poor performance, or was it something like performance amounting to gross misconduct?

The findings state emails & requests for quotes were ignored and ETAs not supplied. There are two main ways to account for this, competence or malicious. You appear to be arguing that you were never trained and were unaware of these due to competence. Is there anything, even said in jest, that might have led to your bosses believing it was malicious - such as you never wanting to work in this role?

I don't know the value to the business of the 30 ignored emails, quotes and ETA but I would suspect the MD and FD were thinking of the lifetime value of those clients being lost as a result of those ignored emails, quotes and ETAs.

From the list of things you brought up at the hearing, you appear to be a switched on, assertive, competent individual. There doesn't seem to be any apology for all the missed work or offer to improve your processes to ensure it doesn't happen again. I can see why MD & FD might not have thought you were incompetent.

Your workload presumably couldn't just be put on hold for a month or more, so getting someone to cover the work makes sense.

jonnygee2

Summary of findings were,
Ignoring emails and requests from Account customers

Let's not beat around the bush here. Account executives missing customers emails costs companies money. You don't need special training or targets to know that ignoring emails from customers is unacceptable!

In my job I received anywhere between 30 and 70 emails a day

This doesn't explain why some were ignored. Might explain why you failed to meet SLAs or ran behind, but not why you ignored emails completely. Being a bit slow poor is performance. Just ignoring people sounds like a conduct issue to me. What did you actually do with the emails? Delete them? Or just file them unread/unaanswered?

I don't know what ACAS would say but personally, as a manager I think I'd also want to fire someone who had ignored thirty customers emails in three months.

It's obviously misconduct. Is it minor or gross misconduct? Unsure. Might be worth getting ACAS opinion, it does sound like they didn't handle this perfectly. I'm not as convinced as others here that you didn't deserve to be fired for this, though.

Takeaway_Addict

StarwarsSloth94 wrote: »

I appreciate your opinion, however I feel that its been formed without the full information. In my job I received anywhere between 30 and 70 emails a day. Even at the lower end of 30, over a 3 month period that totals 1,800 emails received. 30 missed mails is equal to 1.66 percent failure rate based on 30 emails a day and not a figure anywhere between and up to the max of 70 in which case the failure rate would be lower.

Sorry but it doesn't matter- you missed or ignored a substantial amount of emails.


And on the flipside if you could answer 98.33% of emails then you could have answered 100%.


As someone put is this gross misconduct? IMO probably not but you would definitely be on an improvement plans.

SandraX

Dear OP

Two of my family have been in a similar situation as you, EG, unfairly dismissed.

They both went to ACAS, best thing they did and got out of court settlements.

Good luck.

Les79

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

I think people are being a bit soft on you tbh.


Ignoring emails from customers is simply not acceptable, missing one or two in 3 months would be understandable but 30 in 3 months, or one every other working day is simply not.

There doesn't need to be a target based on this, its a reasonable assumption from the employer that you reply/action all.

Yea, it seems a bit weird.


Also with the longer break issue... I'm not 100% convinced that OP is completely innocent with that, as complacency can set in and people do take the mick a bit! It's quite common really...


There's quite a bit of "blag" in their post. I don't mean "blag" literally, but more that they seem to have an answer for everything, and you'd think that they were Jesus reincarnated!

Les79

StarwarsSloth94 wrote: »

I appreciate your opinion, however I feel that its been formed without the full information. In my job I received anywhere between 30 and 70 emails a day. Even at the lower end of 30, over a 3 month period that totals 1,800 emails received. 30 missed mails is equal to 1.66 percent failure rate based on 30 emails a day and not a figure anywhere between and up to the max of 70 in which case the failure rate would be lower.

Well, it potentially isn't a 1.66% error rate because of the fact that those 1,800 - 4,200 emails would need to be READ by the MD (and potentially FD) in their entirety. Assuming it were to take 5 seconds to read an email (very generous), it would take 2.5 hours for 1 person to read through everything (1,800 that is).


I'm not confident enough to CONCLUDE this, but there's a good chance that your ~30 error emails were found either by:


- Random sampling (which would make your 1.66% error rate extremely likely to be fallaciously low; picking out 30 errors from a sample which the MD "can be arsed" reading is pretty dire)


- Your colleagues flagging up examples to management (which ties in with the "anonymous complaints, verbally" part)


The only other option I can see is that you've been stitched up (maybe by monitoring you for a few weeks/months?). Which is what you are arguing, but I'm just getting the vibe that you are quite intelligent and trying to PRETEND that you've been stitched up here. I might be completely wrong there, but it is a possibility. Like I said above, you do have an answer for everything and my post here isn't any different!


But, you know, what I'm saying is immaterial. You should:


- Speak to ACAS
- Listen to the constructive advice on here
- (and this is constructive) Reflect on anything which you may have done, but not admitted to, which has caught you out here so that you don't repeat it in future jobs.