Employer Doles Out Punishment for the Pettiest Things!

EliotBee

I feel that my ex-employer pushed me out of my job by enforcing the pettiest rules and doling out disproportionate punishments for absence & lateness. The 'rules' are thus. Only three instances of absence or lateness are allowed in the first six months of employment before your contract is either terminated or put on an extended probationary period. This is fine on the surface, but this also includes lateness of mere SECONDS. If your start time is 09:00 and your computer freezes for a few seconds too long, making it 09:01 when you signed in, you are pulled into a 20 minute long meeting to discuss why it happened. If it happens a second time, you have another meeting, plus a 'letter of concern' (a written warning, basically) and a third time, your contract is at risk of termination.

What i found happened to me, is the worry of being late seemed to only make things worse! I would be so worried about being late for work in the morning that it would keep me awake at night, and it eventually caused a breakdown, which ultimately forced me to leave the company. This in turn meant i had to go back onto Universal Credit and now I am even deeper in debt than I was to begin with, and all my hard work in fixing my mental ill health has been undone. I did not want to leave my job but they left me with no choice in the matter!
I feel like the company needs to be held accountable for the damage they have done, but they persuaded me to attend an 'exit interview' with my manager and one of the HR team where they proceeded to put words in my mouth to suit themselves and then made me sign a form, so the chances of that happening are incredibly slim!

Why are companies allowed to treat their staff like this? Particularly the vulnerable ones. (I declared my mental ill health on my application form, so they knew what they were doing from the word go with their bullying and coercion tactics)

haras_nosirrah

I think if the company I worked for had that policy I wouldn't be arriving at work and logging in at 9 on the dot. Why not log in at 8:55 so that there is less of a risk of being recorded late?

Samsung_Note2

EliotBee wrote: »

I feel that my ex-employer pushed me out of my job by enforcing the pettiest rules and doling out disproportionate punishments for absence & lateness. The 'rules' are thus. Only three instances of absence or lateness are allowed in the first six months of employment before your contract is either terminated or put on an extended probationary period. This is fine on the surface, but this also includes lateness of mere SECONDS. If your start time is 09:00 and your computer freezes for a few seconds too long, making it 09:01 when you signed in, you are pulled into a 20 minute long meeting to discuss why it happened. If it happens a second time, you have another meeting, plus a 'letter of concern' (a written warning, basically) and a third time, your contract is at risk of termination.

What i found happened to me, is the worry of being late seemed to only make things worse! I would be so worried about being late for work in the morning that it would keep me awake at night, and it eventually caused a breakdown, which ultimately forced me to leave the company. This in turn meant i had to go back onto Universal Credit and now I am even deeper in debt than I was to begin with, and all my hard work in fixing my mental ill health has been undone. I did not want to leave my job but they left me with no choice in the matter!
I feel like the company needs to be held accountable for the damage they have done, but they persuaded me to attend an 'exit interview' with my manager and one of the HR team where they proceeded to put words in my mouth to suit themselves and then made me sign a form, so the chances of that happening are incredibly slim!

Why are companies allowed to treat their staff like this? Particularly the vulnerable ones. (I declared my mental ill health on my application form, so they knew what they were doing from the word go with their bullying and coercion tactics)

What utter clap trap...you feel bullied and coercion tactics and resulted in a mental breakdown due to being expected to arrive on time.

Its really quite obvious that you wasn't suited to the position,so yes leave..but to accuse an employer of the above just makes you look like your trying to blame others for your failings.

What i find offensive is the people who have serious mental health issues are not receiving the help they desperately need as people like you are stating they have had a breakdown due to being asked to arrive and start work on time...incredible.:eek:

sangie595

Good God, whatever next? Employers expect you to turn up to work on time, when it's a well known fact that people with mental health conditions can't get in to work on time. The next thing you know, they'll need thinking that people should actually work whilst in their employment.

I seriously hope this is a troll, because if not, I despair of the ridiculous things that people expect out of life.

LilElvis

The majority of your former co-workers obviously manage to abide by these rules - they're hardly draconian.

Diamandis

It's perfectly reasonable for your employer to expect you to be at work on time.

System

Generation Snowflake - told from very little that they are special and they can do anything. Reinforced at school and college where poor bahaviour is tolerated and one cannot fail. Go out into the real world and think..."wait a minute, you can't tell me what to do!...what do you mean I'm late, the bus was late it's not my fault...not my fault the computer didn't turn on fast enough"

nicechap

This reads as a set up for an 'equlaity' expert to come along and set everyone right about employers responsibilities.

On the assumption it isn't, OP get yourself over to the debt free wannabe board - you'll get lots of practical advice on addressing your worsening debt situation. That should be your priority rather than moaning to strangers about a company's time keeping policy.

You will find just about every job expects you to start work on time - if you have a problem with time keeping, maybe look towards self employment where you set your own start & finish times.

KatrinaWaves

If you struggle to get to work on time, try and find a job with flexi time/flexible hours.

I have to be in by 8.45, but I can be paid from earlier if I get in earlier (and work :P) If I get in at 8.50 every so often its okay, but with most jobs if you routinely come in late then you will be disciplined. You can't just do that everyday.

Samsung_Note2

nicechap wrote: »

This reads as a set up for an 'equlaity' expert to come along and set everyone right about employers responsibilities.

On the assumption it isn't, OP get yourself over to the debt free wannabe board - you'll get lots of practical advice on addressing your worsening debt situation. That should be your priority rather than moaning to strangers about a company's time keeping policy.

You will find just about every job expects you to start work on time - if you have a problem with time keeping, maybe look towards self employment where you set your own start & finish times.

Wouldn't work..they would sack themselves for being late and then claim unfair dismissal.:D

ACG

Ive worked for a bank and an insurance company.
Both had the policy that your computer should be turned on with everything loaded up and ready for 9am on the dot. If someone wants to call up the second you open, then you should be ready to take the call and deal with it.

I can honestly say, I never thought there was a problem with that. It would have been nice if someone had come in and started everything up for me, but I used to come in at 8.50, switch the PC on, make a brew and then log in to everything. There were around 300 people on the floor, I did not know all 300, but I do not know of anyone who seen that as wrong.

I love that you want to hold your employer account for ensuring you are ready to start work at the beginning of your shift and all for the sake of 5 minutes.

I used to own a pub and we told staff who were on the first shift of the day to be there 10 minutes early to put the nozzles on the pumps and check the tills were correct and to open the doors at 11am.

Looking at the other posts, I think you are in the minority. This is the way adult life works.

Just to add, my very first job was doing data entry for Royal Mail when I was 17 (16 years ago... yikes!) They monitored you to the second there and I did get fired for being literally 6 seconds late on the third occasion. I never actually believed they would fire me for seconds. It was a valuable lesson and guess who was to blame...me.