Friend has a disciplinary (at work) advice.

ethan

ethan

ethan

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Is it right or even legal for a friend of mine to be singled out for a disciplinary when what they have been accused of has been common practice for the past thirteen years with the full acknowledgement of his management?

Another department has accused him of a breach of a policy and procedure document that was only written two years ago which does not take effectively in to consideration the practicalities of him doing his job.

He has been accused of leaving bag of coins in a room instead of the safe. The room has no access or windows except through a metal door that has two locks on it. Nobody who is unauthorised has access to this room and nobody is allowed to enter it unaccompanied. There is also CCTV.
The reason the money was not placed in the safe was because he was not given the chance to count it and there is a liklihood that if it was placed immediately in the safe, without checking there could be a mix up and he would be unable to account for any errors preventing them from occurring again. As previously stated, this has been the way they have done things for thirteen plus years.
There is a chance he could lose his job. The irony being that he is being accused of a breach when, with the full acknowledgement of his management, two levels above him, they don't even lock the safe until the evening due to it being on a timing system they think is too complicated for them to operate.
 
Who knows but he needs to keep a record of all things he does and what his own managerial team say about when he mentions it.
 
Is he breaching just safe policy, or also the till policy where the money has come from? He should likely have had to have balanced his till before removing cash for the safe.
 
Unfortunately in that situation if he couldn't do the job properly in time he should have involved a manager. I see this in companies all the time unfortunately long standing laziness as to proper procedure, etc. that eventually someone gets caught out by even though "everybody" does it :s

One place I went into awhile back for instance had the safe keys (large walk in safe) hanging on a hook by the entry and even labelled safe keys because no one could be bothered to do the proper procedure of booking the keys in and out when needed.
 
As far as I’m aware this would be a clear case of victimisation if it could be shown that is standard site practice regardless of procedure. A tribunal would view it dimly if it ever got that far.
 
Safe policy because the money in question is delivered by a third party. This is why it needs to be checked prior to placing it in the safe, but staff are not given the chance to check it when it is received. There have been numerous occasions in which the amounts received have been innaccurate. The only way the errors were discovered is because the cash wasn't mixed with the contents of the safe.
I have checked the policy to which the breach is alleged to have occurred and it isn't worth the paper it is written on. It refers to open areas and the usage of a safe and makes no mention of specially locked adapted rooms with steel doors.
It is a generic policy that has been shoe-horned and cobbled together that is unsuited to the task at hand. It was written by somebody with no experience of retail.
 
Somebody I know got a disciplinary for near the same thing, they got a written warning even though it was their manager telling people to do it that way
They worked for Iceland
 
Not sure, but I'd get as much of this as possible in an email, make sure he retains a copy and try to broaden it out into a general review of the department rather than a roasting of himself.
 
If it's been normal procedure for years and they're suddenly pulling him in for disciplinary over it without any prior warning then I would assume they're either looking for reasons to sack him or the other department are just jobsworths and doing everything by the book.
 
Tell him to ride the storm out, there should be a written warning first before disciplinary. (unless he has already had them) What's wrong here is that if it's gone on for 13 years and nobody has said anything until now. Make sure your friend notes everything down whats gone on for the last X amount of years in that duty in regards to this.
 
One company I worked at they were dishing out warnings etc for really stupid stuff like this. It came back to bite them hard.

Everyone joined a union and then they couldn't touch anyone without them getting on the blower to a union rep, who made their lives hell lol
 
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Also need to note down or have others willing to state that they do it in the same way that he does. Last thing he wants to find out is getting stitched up by others saying they do it the correct way.
 
In the disciplinary your friend will have the opportunity to give mitigating factors, he needs to outline clearly the reason why he left the money out, that it's common practice and that if the management come up with a better procedure he'll adopt it.

I think there may be more to this than we're being told.
 
Nasher said:
One company I worked at they were dishing out warnings etc for really stupid stuff like this. It came back to bite them hard.

Everyone joined a union and then they couldn't touch anyone without them getting on the blower to a union rep, who made their lives hell lol
Click to expand...
He is attending his meeting with the union rep
mmj_uk said:
If it's been normal procedure for years and they're suddenly pulling him in for disciplinary over it without any prior warning then I would assume they're either looking for reasons to sack him or the other department are just jobsworths and doing everything by the book.
Click to expand...

The other department have lost some money.
 
If that's case then they're probably just doing everything by the book, I'd just form my defence around how it's been normal practice within his department for 13(?) years and he wasn't given any notification of change.
 
First thing to check is whether your friend has signed any training policies with regard to cash handling procedures, specifically the one he's been accused of breaching.
 
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