Gross misconduct, my word against theirs

JohnJones80

I spoke to him, this is what he said;

- The company were obliged to do a thorough investigation into the claims, but did not do so
- The person who chaired the disciplinary was the person who was at conflict with my friend
- The company failed to provide my friend with all evidence before the disciplinary meeting
- During the meeting they read out only parts of statements, and refused to provide those statements in full
- The statements were not signed

That's the breakdown he gave me.

He did not get 20 weeks pay he got 12.
He did not sign any disclosure agreement, they sent the cheque, without any letter or anything else attached, to is home address and he hasn't heard anything from them since.

Ja7188

- The company were obliged to do a thorough investigation into the claims, but did not do so
- The person who chaired the disciplinary was the person who was at conflict with my friend
- The company failed to provide my friend with all evidence before the disciplinary meeting
- During the meeting they read out only parts of statements, and refused to provide those statements in full
- The statements were not signed

They may have learnt from this and will be a lot more thorough this time - sounds like this may or may not be to your advantage.

He did not get 20 weeks pay he got 12.
He did not sign any disclosure agreement, they sent the cheque, without any letter or anything else attached, to is home address and he hasn't heard anything from them since.

Sounds like he may have had a 12 week notice period and handed in his resignation, at which point it sounds like he may then been put on gardening leave. I'd have thought that any form of settlement agreement would need legal involvement - others may be able to confirm.

The situation does sound pretty grim from your perspective. How long have you worked there...?

Undervalued

Ja7188 wrote: »

They may have learnt from this and will be a lot more thorough this time - sounds like this may or may not be to your advantage.



Sounds like he may have had a 12 week notice period and handed in his resignation, at which point it sounds like he may then been put on gardening leave. I'd have thought that any form of settlement agreement would need legal involvement - others may be able to confirm.

The situation does sound pretty grim from your perspective. How long have you worked there...?

For a formal settlement agreement to be binding the employee must receive independent legal advice.

As you say, almost certainly the OP's colleague got payment in lieu of notice. An employer is taking quite a chance if they reach a "settlement" informally as the former employee can take then money then still make a tribunal claim!

JohnJones80

Ja7188 wrote: »

They may have learnt from this and will be a lot more thorough this time - sounds like this may or may not be to your advantage.



Sounds like he may have had a 12 week notice period and handed in his resignation, at which point it sounds like he may then been put on gardening leave. I'd have thought that any form of settlement agreement would need legal involvement - others may be able to confirm.

The situation does sound pretty grim from your perspective. How long have you worked there...?

Over 7 years. My defence is my own record & my own competence. I have many people who are witness to my competence, and until myself & my boss had this major fallout, he was pressuring me to become a supervisor, which my other post was about. It was stated specifically, that I was the only person with the competence to fill this position.

Despite the fact I rejected this, he forced me to do it for no extra money anyway. As well as many other things, such as the formation of a new department & me running that department on an operatives salary.

I am trained to HND level, have many years experience, there is no one else in my workplace that can do the wide range of tasks with the competence I do, every appraisal I've ever had has been overwhelmingly positive, I've not had so much as a single black mark on my record, no verbal warnings or anything, I have trained most of the current team in one form or another..

The person who is accusing me has no qualifications, very little relative experience, has not shown the level of competence I have, has not been given any position of trust as I have.

And yet an accusation from him, about me doing my own job, will get me sacked and it doesn't look good in tribunal? This is crazy.

Savvy_Sue

JohnJones80 wrote: »

I have said things like 'Mate you're really letting me down here, you need to buckle down and crack on because it's having a major affect on me'

To be fair, if I had a colleague saying this kind of thing to me, more than once, I'd find it quite intimidating / bullying. There's nothing useful I can take from comments like that.

What I'd need to know is how I can do better. For example, if you find someone whose work is slowing you down, can you see a way in which they could speed up? I'm often pained when colleagues press 'CAPS LOCK' to type one capital letter, then press it again to get back to lower case, because they don't seem to know that pressing the 'SHIFT' key at the same time as a letter will save a keystroke. If they needed to be able to type faster, I'd show them this shortcut. I'm sure your work is completely different, but if you have developed 'best' ways of doing things, then sharing them is generally better than saying 'get a move on'.

If it's that they're generally just not a speedy person, then working as a team helps more than telling someone who's slower than you that they need to 'buckle down'. Another example: I'm a very fast proof-reader, and also very good at it. Back in my proof reading days, if we had a rush job on, then we might put several people onto it. If I finished my section before someone else - as good as me but not as fast - I'd take a bit of their section.

If it's that they're generally idling around and just not working, then unless you ARE their supervisor / manager, probably the only thing you can do is ensure their supervisor / manager knows there is a problem. But again, if you can be constructive about it, it helps more than saying someone is no good. "Fred doesn't seem to have completely grasped the intricacies of widget selection yet, I wonder if he needs to spend a bit more time with you showing him what's needed" is better than "Fred is still useless at widget selection."

JohnJones80

Hello, just an update.

I requested that the other people present provide statements.

If anyone can please help, once a person gives a statement, does that statement have to be printed and then signed by the person giving the statement? I know one of the issues with my friend was that those statements where not signed.

Also, do those statements have to be sent to me before the Disciplinary? Or can they just provide them there and then?

Also, do they have to ask those people for the statement, can they just refuse?

Thank you

Ive been feeling so sick about this all weekend, Ive been trying to rack my brain around whether I missed something, but it seems so unlike me. I couldnt sleep until past 5 last night Im so worried.

Undervalued

JohnJones80 wrote: »

Hello, just an update.

I requested that the other people present provide statements.

If anyone can please help, once a person gives a statement, does that statement have to be printed and then signed by the person giving the statement? I know one of the issues with my friend was that those statements where not signed.

Also, do those statements have to be sent to me before the Disciplinary? Or can they just provide them there and then?

Also, do they have to ask those people for the statement, can they just refuse?

Thank you

Ive been feeling so sick about this all weekend, Ive been trying to rack my brain around whether I missed something, but it seems so unlike me. I couldnt sleep until past 5 last night Im so worried.

Well there is no absolute "have to" about any of this. The days of statutory procedures have long gone.

ACAS produce guidelines and although in most cases an employer would be wise to try and follow them a different process could well still be fair.

A tribunal, if it came to that, would expect an employer to have made reasonable efforts to deal with the matter fairly. They do not expect the employer to have the detective skills of Inspector Morse or to conduct a hearing like the Lord Chief Justice.

JohnJones80

Indeed, but you have to be neither Inspector Morse nor a lord Chief Justice to ask a couple of people a number of questions, I'm sure you agree with that.

Undervalued

JohnJones80 wrote: »

Indeed, but you have to be neither Inspector Morse nor a lord Chief Justice to ask a couple of people a number of questions, I'm sure you agree with that.

Quite. However the point I was making was that there is no absolute hard and fast "rules" they have to follow.

A tribunal may well feel that what you asked of the employer was reasonable and take a dim view if they ignore your requests.

Brummie85

This sounds like a pretty bad situation to be in.

If you are being accused of missing elements of your inspection, surely you keep a record of your testing results. Could you pull up the inspection and then compare it to the piece of equipment?

We had a similar situation at work with a subcontractor. They said a piece of equipment was fine and signed it off, but when we went to it following a failure found it littered with related alarms that predate their inspection that should have indicated the problem to them.

In all honesty if they want you gone, they will find a way. The best advice would be to look at working for a similar company and walking away with your head held high.