2 staff have left without notice - anything i can do?
- Thread starter unwashed potato!
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Soldato
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Come on op what job did they do?
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cheers guys. as i said from the beginning, i'm leaning towards just letting this be and learning the important lessons from this. I have and will move on now i know it's not worth the hassle. Had I not asked i'd have always wondered so i'ts good to get a firm answer on this.
2 left because they were a couple. Their reason was because they were cowards and nothing else. I believe they knew they planned to leave, and thought if they gave me notice i'd not be as kind and allowing to them within the last few weeks. In the time of their employment i've gone above and beyond what I should have, which is why i'm slightly bitter about this whole thing. for instance I let them take a whole month off over Christmas (even though they'd at this point only accrued a little holiday) because they are from another country and had a kid back home, so i was more than happy for them to have a long time with their kid over that period. I'd do the same in their position and didn't want to be strict and just give them a couple weeks. I also have lent money in advance, £500 at times given in cash with the faith they will pay back after pay day. In this situation they owe me £200 still, but guess that's long gone. I've helped them buy cars, look for insurance etc for them in my personal time, let them use the work van for personal use etc
They are also not working all the hours they're supposed to. I had to make the decision to take on staff before the work was there, or wait until we're so busy that we need more staff. I decided to take these staff on as the lose was minimal if they weren't working full time and it gave me the security and ability i needed to expand, and have it so on free days they'd go leafleting. So for instance some weeks within the whole time of employment they'd work just 1/2 days and should leaflet the rest. The leafleting i'd rarly get them to do as the weather lately has just been too rubbish to be walking the streets. I'd instead allow them to work other places where they'd earn cash in hand, as well as my pay so they were on quite good money for what they did.
I felt I had a good relationship with one of them, and the guy in particular knew that as we expanded as would have given him the opportunity to expand too.
You guys can look too much into things, but at the end of this all with everyone who was aware of how things were, everyone is shocked how they've gone and done this without any notice considering all I've done for them.
fairly sure your assumption is correct
2 left because they were a couple. Their reason was because they were cowards and nothing else. I believe they knew they planned to leave, and thought if they gave me notice i'd not be as kind and allowing to them within the last few weeks. In the time of their employment i've gone above and beyond what I should have, which is why i'm slightly bitter about this whole thing. for instance I let them take a whole month off over Christmas (even though they'd at this point only accrued a little holiday) because they are from another country and had a kid back home, so i was more than happy for them to have a long time with their kid over that period. I'd do the same in their position and didn't want to be strict and just give them a couple weeks. I also have lent money in advance, £500 at times given in cash with the faith they will pay back after pay day. In this situation they owe me £200 still, but guess that's long gone. I've helped them buy cars, look for insurance etc for them in my personal time, let them use the work van for personal use etc
They are also not working all the hours they're supposed to. I had to make the decision to take on staff before the work was there, or wait until we're so busy that we need more staff. I decided to take these staff on as the lose was minimal if they weren't working full time and it gave me the security and ability i needed to expand, and have it so on free days they'd go leafleting. So for instance some weeks within the whole time of employment they'd work just 1/2 days and should leaflet the rest. The leafleting i'd rarly get them to do as the weather lately has just been too rubbish to be walking the streets. I'd instead allow them to work other places where they'd earn cash in hand, as well as my pay so they were on quite good money for what they did.
I felt I had a good relationship with one of them, and the guy in particular knew that as we expanded as would have given him the opportunity to expand too.
You guys can look too much into things, but at the end of this all with everyone who was aware of how things were, everyone is shocked how they've gone and done this without any notice considering all I've done for them.
fairly sure your assumption is correct
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Soldato
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I would suggest you stick to the legalities of your employers position in future.
It is ok to be reasonable, but giving cash advances seems a big stretch.
Also if one had been with you five months, how did she get a month off over Christmas.
Or was only one of them with you at that stage?
Stick to employment law in future, and maintain a distance as the employer.
It is ok to be reasonable, but giving cash advances seems a big stretch.
Also if one had been with you five months, how did she get a month off over Christmas.
Or was only one of them with you at that stage?
Stick to employment law in future, and maintain a distance as the employer.
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the girl was not on this contract at the time. i gave her this full time contract 5 months ago.
it's all well and easy to say keep a distance, but due to the size we're naturally going to be working closer than you're thinking. perhaps you work in an office with many staff, but put yourself in a position that you're working one on one with your boss just you 2 day after day, month after month. due to the nature of the work, a closeness and hopefully a respect will naturally form.
this isn't an industry full of middle class people. it's the poorer end, minimum wage lot. If i didn't lend money early to some of my staff I've had over the years they'd have no money for food to eat. look into things you know nothing about and judge, but try and take yourself away from your comfortable chair and computer screen and imagine what it's like for others for one second.
Soldato
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And im starting to get a picture of why they might have left,Some bosses can be right idiots,They think because they're "the big boss" they can walk all over you,talk to you like your stupid..not going to work with a lot of people.
Not saying your one of these but what you said above isn't very professional,talking about them on a forum where they cant defend themselves.
If i was in a position to just walk out of my current job into a new one with the same or better wages/hours,I would not hesitate at all and its not because i dont like the job BUT in reality,No matter where you work these days your just a number..if things went south the boss would ONLY care about the company and themselves and wouldn't give a damn about the employees.
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10/10. would read again. very relevent and not at all biased or made from a lot of assumptions on your part. congrats.
i'm not being professional right now you're right. On a sunday evening, i've posted on a forum i like to go to, to get some advice from people i consider online friends that i respect the opinion of. i wanted some simple advice. I got it. people ask for further explanation and then ripe apart the brief tiny bits of information they know.
I also asked my mum for advice. I didn't call up these employees to give their side to the argument with my mum either. please now pick that apart too. I've lost money in the 3 days since they've quit, and will continue to do so each day for at least a few weeks.
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Put it down to experience and learn from it. In my business we have a reasonably fast turnover of staff with other people coming from previous businesses and doing the rounds, so to speak. You are always going to have a number of bad staff regardless of what you do depending on geographic location and job type and caliber of client. Last time I looked we had seven members of staff out of 75 with attachment of earnings orders against them. One of them went to a solicitor to try and sue us for not paying the petrol money on his shiny new BM until I reminded him and his solicitor we still had not received his vehicle's tax and insurance details which I would raise with the police. Said documents were a couple of months overdue and never appeared.
Edit: You have a right to deduct any monies owed to you from their holiday entitlement if there is anything outstanding etc.
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If only there was some way that you, as their employer, could alleviate this situation.
Soldato
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Well, tbf, people could've started in a dire financial situation which progressively got worse. Even with a pay bump, you still have to get from paycheck to paycheck without falling prey to something like a payday loan or managing existing debt. I'm thinking outside the middle class box here.
Good grief. If you are going to this, which I wouldn't recommend, I would at least make sure the amount you loaned them was less than the amount due in wages they had earned so you could take it from the latter when things went "pair-shaped" with written (and signed) proof.
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Did you miss where I said that I did help alleviate by lending them money when it was needed?
Are you really trying to make a dig at this? Really think about how you appear right now, posting in this thread with a needless sarcy smartass reply like that.
Associate
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Its the only way to move forward...
You seem to have missed the part about this being a public forum and as such you are subject to responses you might not want or like.
Your losses are premature, but the average employee has so little money that suing them would be futile. Probably best not to have so much money riding on staff that have been employed such a short time really. It sounds like you are creating a hostile environment though given that you want to change the accounting practice so that employees are left being owed money.
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OP: You seem like a nice guy who got done over.
Sorry about the loss, but I guess it's the risk you take, given the demographic of your prospective employees. Not caring much for references on a C.V will tend to bring the worst out of some people. Legally, there might well be something you can do, but practically just write it off and move on.
Sorry about the loss, but I guess it's the risk you take, given the demographic of your prospective employees. Not caring much for references on a C.V will tend to bring the worst out of some people. Legally, there might well be something you can do, but practically just write it off and move on.