worried about getting the sack

baron777red

hi

i need some advice please

ive been working for a compnay for over 2 and a half years now and i pay the wages for the branch that i look after, well last week i made a mistake paying the wages.

there are 2 guys that work together who both get commission but they dont know what each other gets, and my mistke was that worker number 1 got worker number 's commission and vice versa, so worker number 1 who regularly gets the lower amount of commission found out that number 2 was paid more than him, so has kicked up a fuss

the amount of money involved is in the thousands and number 1 was so upset he has now walked out and left the company as a result of my mistake

can i be sacked for making this mistake, is it gross negligence?

i have so far not had any verbal or written warnings in all the time i have been working there.

im really worried, this has caused major problems and theyre looking for a scapegoat

any advice would be great

thanks

colin

cornerstone13

Hi, I'm not in HR or really know anything about this but my personal view would be that any responsible employer should have systems in place to prevent this kind of thing happening. If you kept to those systems, you should be OK. Your employer should also have a disciplinary policy and usually the only basis for instant dismissal is gross misconduct and even then there should be meetings with witnesses etc.

Sorry not to be of more help - are you in a union, to ask their advice ?

Zazen999

Hi
Can you give us some idea of the actual events; and where the mistake happened.
By that I mean:

Did you follow the procedure that you had been given to pay the wages, and where did the mistake actually occur?

When it was discovered, what actually happened; did you tell the person on the lower commission that he had been paid an incorrect amount, or that he had been paid someone else's commission...or did he find out from the other person that the monies had been mixed up?

What happened after that with regards his leaving?

How easy is it to make the mistake, has it nearly happened before and been reported or is it just a horrible error where you weren't paying attention?

Was anything else going on that could have impacted on your ability to do the job?

I don't think so much the company are looking for a scapegoat, if you have admitted that you made the mistake; what you need to now is to make sure you get the facts right and pinpoint it to company system errors/procedures if they were at fault.

baron777red

hi

can we call the 2 people involved

peter (gets the higher commission)
paul (gets the lower commission)

firstly the wasges are prepared from figures that i get from the branch manager, i enter these ont a spreadsheet and then onto the wages computer which calculates everything, my mistake was entering the wrong figures onthe spreadsheet, so subsequently they were entered onthe system wrong, without me noticing

i should have checked the figures more carefully before i finalised the pay run, thats why the problem has happened

the surroundings of pauls leaving were, the payslips were hnaded out by the manager at the branch, peter complained he didnt have enough commission and then pauld found out he had been paid too much, the manager called me to say you mixed up the commissions, we paid the extra to peter and asked paul to give us the money back he was overpaid, then he apparenlty stormed out becasue he wasnt happy that his colleague got so much more commission than he did when they work together, even though peter is the senior of the 2

my boss has spoken to me about me and giv me a telling off and i said i would take a lot more care in future and double and triple check my figures,

i have been careless and not make the necessary checks that i should have, there are no laid down set procedures to follow, can they sack me? i dont think they will but i want to prepare myself if something happens

glossgal

Well your length of service will protect you from unfair dismissal and I'm fairly sure gross misconduct or similar would be seen as disproportionate punishment for the mistake you made. I expect you'll get a formal verbal warning at most, although I don't know how fair minded your employers are generally?

You made an honest mistake and you aren't responsible for someone else throwing their toys out of the pram-if 'Paul' decided to leave without any sort of reasonable discussion (why it would be a surprise to learn you earn less than a senior colleague is beyond me )then the company are well rid IMO, your employer may even think you've done them a favour when the dust settles...

G-G_4

If it is commision based income, then surely it is based on performance? If that is the case then Paul can't complain that he isn't earning as much.

I think it was an honest mistake and I can imagine they would / could sack you over it..

xx

CFC

I do not think it likely that this could be construed as gross misconduct as I cannot construe the potential grounds (eg deliberate error, or circumventing company systems, or putting company at risk) for dismissal.

If the mistake is due to carelessness, it is possible that a verbal warning could be issued, but fairly unlikely; however it is more likely to result in a disciplinary escalation on a second rather than a first occasion.