Receiving a disciplinary for breaking up a cardboard box

Ellieseleven

MovingForwards wrote: »

Your daughter needs to keep a diary detailing comments, dates and times. This can then be presented to HR.

Hopefully she will find a different company to work for before she is completely drained and loses what confidence she has.

That's exactly what she has done.

She has an interview with a different company and is hopeful of being successful - she will present her log to HR and is currently putting a letter of complaint together. She accepts she is never going to get anywhere as this AM has some clout within the organisation but she will complain to make HR at least aware of some of the things happening within the company and maybe prevent other people suffering the same treatment.

Ellieseleven

eamon wrote: »

Just in case this happens to be serious thread. If its a unionised workplace the get the rep to help with the grievance before it is submitted.


Some words of caution though. HR work for management, one of their roles is to protect management. By that I mean they will close ranks. Witnesses may not be prepared to sign their name to anything. Be prepared to loose the grievance, very few are upheld.

This is a serious thread, the reason I asked was because the incident was so ludicrous, I wanted other people's un-biased thoughts.

My daughter accepts HR will probably not take her seriously due to the position this AM holds but she wants to bring it to someone's attention. She is not the first person to complain and maybe the more complaints they receive, maybe they will start to take notice.

Dox

Ellieseleven wrote: »

She did ask and was told it was intimidating to the cardboard box

Has the box made a formal complaint?

Marcon

Ellieseleven wrote: »

That's exactly what she has done.

She has an interview with a different company and is hopeful of being successful - she will present her log to HR and is currently putting a letter of complaint together. She accepts she is never going to get anywhere as this AM has some clout within the organisation but she will complain to make HR at least aware of some of the things happening within the company and maybe prevent other people suffering the same treatment.

Oh dear...the old 'stop other people suffering...' chestnut. Other people are not her concern. Move on, forget the grievance procedure and start afresh. If others are bothered, they can complain while they are employed there, or vote with their feet.

Ellieseleven

Marcon wrote: »

Oh dear...the old 'stop other people suffering...' chestnut. Other people are not her concern. Move on, forget the grievance procedure and start afresh. If others are bothered, they can complain while they are employed there, or vote with their feet.

Others are bothered that's the point...if they keep voting with their feet then this tyrant has won. My daughter has spent 5 years of her life with this company, why should she just "move on" without making it known what this woman is capable of. It's the 21st Century not the 19th

getmore4less

After 5 years she should know by now the pecking order of the company and who would be on side.

If the local management have failed to act then that means going outside the current chain of command to others covered by the same AM or over them to the layer above.

Remember HR are there for the company not the employees in most places that means to get them on side they need the support of some one higher up in the organization

Ja7188

However, if there are other background issues that you are possible unaware of, and if the cctv footage showed your daughter attacking the box a la Norman Bates in the shower scene in Psycho, then *maybe* it is just one thing in a long list of worrying behaviours.

Assuming that this thread is for real, I'd say that most managers would consider this a good reason for not considering someone for promotion - it tends to suggest an intolerance of stress which clearly casts doubt on suitability for promotion.

[Deleted User]

Ellieseleven wrote: »

Others are bothered that's the point...if they keep voting with their feet then this tyrant has won. My daughter has spent 5 years of her life with this company, why should she just "move on" without making it known what this woman is capable of. It's the 21st Century not the 19th

And she should be praised for having the courage to do so.

It needs to be on record that this has happened - if everyone points it out when it does happen, then hopefully management will see the pattern and do something about it.

Brynsam

Ellieseleven wrote: »

Others are bothered that's the point...if they keep voting with their feet then this tyrant has won. My daughter has spent 5 years of her life with this company, why should she just "move on" without making it known what this woman is capable of. It's the 21st Century not the 19th

If they're bothered why aren't they complaining? And voting with your feet doesn't mean anything except they are free to move to somewhere more congenial. If it was so serious. your daughter should have been complaining constantly while she was there and while she intended to stay. Doing it on the way out is the action of a wimp.

[Deleted User]

Ellieseleven wrote: »

It's not a male dominated environment and the AM is a woman. I don't think the AM trawled through CCTV footage for anyone else...

There could be a breach of GDPR here.

CCTV footage is covered by GDPR rules and I believe that not only do you have to have a valid reason to take and store footage, but also to use the footage for the purpose in which the data (cctv images) were collected. 'Trawling' the footage would not be a good enough reason.

You would need to find someone with more expertise on this though if you were to use this as part of your daughter's complaint.

Edited to add:

Just been looking and it seems that the footage might not be able to be used anyway.

For example:

"An employer must ensure that any results of the monitoring of employees are used solely for the purpose for which they are obtained. Results of monitoring used to detect and prevent data security breaches, or to detect and prevent fraud, may not be used to assess employees for performance. Any decisions about the performance of employees, or about the terms of their employment,"

And

"If your business uses CCTV, you must tell people they may be recorded.
This is usually done by displaying signs, which must be clearly visible and readable.
You must also notify the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) why you’re using the CCTV.
You should control who can see the recordings, and make sure the system is only used for the purpose it was intended for."

So for me under GDPR:

(1) For what purpose are the CCTV images being recorded? If not stated that this is to monitor staff then it should not be used for this purpose
(2) Does the manager viewing the footage have the correct authority to do so. If not they should not be viewing the footage.
(3) Why was the footage viewed? Need to have a legitimate reason to do so.
(4) Data retention - why was 3 month old footage being kept and not deleted?