Poll: suspension from work

Should the OP be banned?

  • Yes

    Votes: 185 80.4%
  • No

    Votes: 45 19.6%

  • Total voters
    230
If he leaves prior to any disciplinary action they would not be able to give a negative reference based upon this incident alone as it remains unresolved and he is essentially not proven to have committed any wrongdoing, it could open them up to legal challenge. If his work was satisfactory otherwise then his reference would reflect that.

You are right insofar that most references these days are simply a record of attendance, duties and attitude and not much else.

out of curiosity what would happen if they put in his reference

"so and so was of great help to the company by uncovering a flaw in our staf discount system which he demonstrated by using this flaw to achieve £XX discounts on products over and above the actual 20% rate, the loophole is now closed but sadly So and so decided to leave the company"


:P
 
lol oddly enough just had a regular customer in ( im at work ) who is a supervisor at tesco and asked him the question raised in this thread.

He said its in the employee handbook that you are only ever to use a single staff discount for any staff purchase. He did have to think wether he had ever heard of the issue with gift cards and tbh he didnt know... said he would find out for me.
 
It is actually a full 40% discount (assuming the gift card covered the purchase in full) as the second 20% discount would have been at full price.

Nope, it's technically a 36% discount.

I buy £125 giftcard, paying on £100 as 20% discount.
I use giftcard to buy £156 worth of items, which reduced by 20% is £125

So I got £156 worth of stuff by only spending £100.

100/156 = 64%

36% discount.

Because Maths :D
 
out of curiosity what would happen if they put in his reference

"so and so was of great help to the company by uncovering a flaw in our staf discount system which he demonstrated by using this flaw to achieve £XX discounts on products over and above the actual 20% rate, the loophole is now closed but sadly So and so decided to leave the company"


:P

I doubt that sarcasm really impacts the point that until a disciplinary has been conducted that he remains innocent, at least for the purposes of a reference. However you word it, you could be open to legal challenge so no self respecting HR dept will touch it with a barge pole. Most references these days are just pre-prepared standardised statements of attendance etc anyway.
 
It's pretty obvious it's not, even without needing to ask the manager.

Not really no.. why is it obvious?

Is it obvious when a dominos code works along side a deal because they made a mess on the system? no you just go... oh nice extra discount.

Like i said does the employee handbook talk about discounts? the op has vanished so we may never know!
 
lol oddly enough just had a regular customer in ( im at work ) who is a supervisor at tesco and asked him the question raised in this thread.

He said its in the employee handbook that you are only ever to use a single staff discount for any staff purchase. He did have to think wether he had ever heard of the issue with gift cards and tbh he didnt know... said he would find out for me.

You cannot use a Tesco discount for anyone else or on behalf of anyone else either.
 
It's pretty obvious it's not, even without needing to ask the manager.

I agree. If he'd done it once inadvertently then fine, but the intention was clearly there to get a discount twice otherwise the OP wouldn't have done it repeatedly.

All he can do now is ensure that there are no rules governing the use of the staff discount on gift cards etc and plead ignorance, but the chances of coming out of this entirely unscathed are virtually nil.

As for people blaming the system; yes, the systems should block it but a lot of retail systems are old, bodged-together, and not particularly flexible when it comes to restricting stuff like this so it's not entirely surprising. It's certainly something OP could mention during the interview but it's not much of a defence.
 
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You cannot use a Tesco discount for anyone else or on behalf of anyone else either.

Yes makes sense. But i wonder does it state that employees are not allowed to use gift cards to make purchases? that would solve the problem as they would never be able to pay for an item using one and so not get the other discount.
 
You don't run a business do you?

You can terminate a contract immediately for gross misconduct. Thieving comes under this far too easily. And it's so easily proven in OPs case.

Checkout something like summary dismissals and stop spouting up things you don't really understand.

Not entirely accurate.
You still need to follow the correct procedures. You can suspend immediately but you'll still need to follow the correct procedure
 
Yes makes sense. But i wonder does it state that employees are not allowed to use gift cards to make purchases? that would solve the problem as they would never be able to pay for an item using one and so not get the other discount.

IME at other retailers you can use a gift card to make a purchase and you'll get the discount on that purchase, but you won't get the discount when you buy the card itself. I'm surprised OP's employer does allow gift cards to be bought with a discount because they're essentially just currency on a card as opposed to an actual product.
 
out of curiosity what would happen if they put in his reference

"so and so was of great help to the company by uncovering a flaw in our staf discount system which he demonstrated by using this flaw to achieve £XX discounts on products over and above the actual 20% rate, the loophole is now closed but sadly So and so decided to leave the company"


:P

That would be evil.. and brilliant!
 
Nope, it's technically a 36% discount.

I buy £125 giftcard, paying on £100 as 20% discount.
I use giftcard to buy £156 worth of items, which reduced by 20% is £125

So I got £156 worth of stuff by only spending £100.

100/156 = 64%

36% discount.

Because Maths :D

or £156 * (1 - (20/100))^2 = £99.84 :p

edit: if he were to buy a gift card @ -20%, then use that to buy another gift card, then use THAT gift card to buy a product, he could have got 49% off!
 
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IME at other retailers you can use a gift card to make a purchase and you'll get the discount on that purchase, but you won't get the discount when you buy the card itself. I'm surprised OP's employer does allow gift cards to be bought with a discount because they're essentially just currency on a card as opposed to an actual product.

Thats my point.

Rereading the OP it seems he was well aware of the double discount and probably just assumed it was ok.. otherwise why was it allowed.

Moral standing aside unless they do it by the book he can argue his case. I suspect he has since found out it is actually in the rule book :p
 
Staff discount is for your own personal use, not to give your entire friends and family circle.

That isn't the issue - in fact they clearly allow him to buy gifts or gift cards for friends and family... The issue is just applying that discount twice.
 
That isn't the issue - in fact they clearly allow him to buy gifts or gift cards for friends and family... The issue is just applying that discount twice.

They should either not allow staff discount on cards, OR not allow staff discount to be used if a gift card is used as full or part payment. Issue solved.
 
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