Grievance process

a4007035

Hi

My friend iscurrently going through a grievance process where a grievance has been made against hin.

There were 4 allegations of which only one has been upheld.

The one that was upheld relates inappropriate comments that he made to a colleague when he was having a discussion outside of work about other colleagues in the team. In the investigation he cooperated fully and he agreed the comments were inappropriate and fell short of the values and standards of the company. The colleague who he was having the conversation with has left the business. The comments were about the aesthetics of females in the team.

He has the disciplinary outcome meeting coming up. He is confident that the outcome will be dismissal.

He would like to know what are his options and what is the best course of option. Resign before the outcome is read? Appeal or go down the legal route?

Ayr_Rage

Wait for the outcome.

He cannot appeal against something that hasn't yet happened.

What "legal route" do you think he can go down if he has admitted to making inappropriate comments and the company has correctly followed their internal procedures?

Undervalued

Ayr_Rage said:

Wait for the outcome.

He cannot appeal against something that hasn't yet happened.

What "legal route" do you think he can go down if he has admitted to making inappropriate comments and the company has correctly followed their internal procedures?

Indeed.

If he were to be dismissed (and he may not be) then his only possible appeal or tribunal claim would be if it was beyond the sanction "a reasonable employer might choose" for the offence.

In all normal circumstances an employment tribunal would expect the claimant to have exhausted the employer's internal appeal process first.

a4007035

So he had the outcome meeting today. His manager advised him that if it's heading that it's going the wrong way to pause the meeting and then had in his resignation. 

When HR came in they told him it was bad news. So he paused the meeting and resigned. 

I thought he would go through the outcome and then appeal on the grounds that the punishment was not proportionate to the incident. 

DullGreyGuy

"Resignation During Disciplinary Process" is seen in a very similar way to being fired, people make assumption that those that jump were guilty. Ultimately it's done and dusted but may not have saved themselves that much. 

Undervalued

a4007035 said:

So he had the outcome meeting today. His manager advised him that if it's heading that it's going the wrong way to pause the meeting and then had in his resignation. 

When HR came in they told him it was bad news. So he paused the meeting and resigned. 

I thought he would go through the outcome and then appeal on the grounds that the punishment was not proportionate to the incident. 

That is not quite the same as the legal test described in my previous post.

a4007035

Thanks. I'm telling him to retract his resignation and go through with the outcome and then appeal. Or seek legal advice for unfair dismissal. He's not listening though. 

Ayr_Rage

"Bad news" could've been a final written warning and the advice from his manager seems to me as completely out of left field.

He may well have burnt his bridges by resigning but I am sure a legal expert will be able to clarify what he can do next.

Your friend doesn't even know the outcome, let alone what he may be appealing against!

lincroft1710

If his resignation is in writing or e-mail and the employer has accepted it, he can't just "retract" it.

Jude57

a4007035 said:

Thanks. I'm telling him to retract his resignation and go through with the outcome and then appeal. Or seek legal advice for unfair dismissal. He's not listening though. 

The employer may well not allow him to retract his resignation and based on the little information we have here, there's nothing pointing to unfair dismissal. The company's process to dismiss only has to be reasonable for a lay person (i.e. not a lawyer) and, given that some of the allegations weren't upheld, it seems to have been fairly conducted. Your friend didn't wait to find out the result of the process which could have been anything from final written warning, demotion, loss of bonus, all the way up to immediate dismissal and all are within the range of reasonable outcomes. Unless there's a great deal more to it, your friend made the decision to resign off his own bat, so he wasn't dismissed, hence he can't claim unfair dismissal. And he'd be very unlikely to prove Constructive Dismissal, again because no apparent pressure was brought to bear by the employer, forcing him out.

 Your friend's judgement seems to be off in several areas and that's for him to reflect on. Sometimes you just have to let people make the mistakes you can see coming from a mile away and hope they learn something from the experience. 

Marcon

a4007035 said:

Thanks. I'm telling him to retract his resignation and go through with the outcome and then appeal. Or seek legal advice for unfair dismissal. He's not listening though. 

With respect, why would he be? Given your posts here, you aren't someone with experience in the field of employment law. You say he isn't listening, but he may already know that retracting his resignation (which you seem to take for granted can be done) isn't an option.