Work Disciplinary

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Work Disciplinary (Updated with Outcome)

I wonder if anyone can offer any advice regarding my wife's (Sarah) Work Disciplinary.

My wife received notification of a disciplinary she has to attend tomorrow morning with the managing director and immediate manager. Immediate manager is making the accusations. This is following a day’s sickness where she was in agony and desperately needed to see a doctor.

She phoned in sick and was told by her manager ‘I am very disappointed in you’ Sarah started crying on the phone explaining that she was in agony and needed to see a doctor immediately. Her mouth had become all swollen and the painkillers were not working and so she return to work the next day still in agony in fear of her manager. Basically she was bullied into not taking any further sickness.

Returning to work the surprise letter states four accusations that are 100% not true. She has now written her account of these four accusations, none of which relate to the sickness. Sarah believes this is just an excuse because of the sickness.

She has a record of ‘well done’ messages from this same manager. This very manger who has bullied her for a few months in a few different ways, all of which she has written down.

Unfortunately she is not in a union and so must fend for herself. She will take someone with her to the meeting.

The managing director who she will meet tomorrow has recently taken over the company and does not really know either party involved. Maybe this is an excuse to cut costs and lay off staff, but Sarah will not accepot this disciplanary, denying everything said about her on the leter. She has done nothing wrong and feels she is being bullied.

Any advice regarding this sort of thing.
 
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Here are the four things

1) General perfomance and approach to daily workload.
Sarah works beyond her call of duty covering colleagues roles day in, day out.

2) The level of admin processing is below standard.
This is not true. Sarah has written down her daily workload whch she meets 100%.

3) The maintenance of stock level database that you are responsible for requires reguler updating which you are not maximising.
As above she has written down her daily workload which shows she does as required.

4) Level of personal internt usage during company time
Sarah is the only person in the room who does not have time for personal internet use and will refer the MD to her internet history which has not been cleared.

Just to add to this she was lead to believe by her doctor she may need surgery on if her anti-biotics do not work. She has been in the worst pain I've ever seen all week barely sleeping dragging herself into work practially overdosing on painkillers. Thankfully this has been resolved today during her dinnertime. Seems it was problems with a wisdom tooth that the dentist has now removed. She returened to work after dinnertime with a bloody mouth in fear of taking further sickness.
 
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Dolph said:
when was she notified? is it an actual discipinary hearing or just an investigation meeting? if it's a hearing, have they given reasonable notice and provided copies of the relevant evidence? is your wife a member of a union or does she have a colleague to take as an employee rep?

sounds dodgy to me, but more info would help
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She was notifiied at 5pm this evening, to meet tomorrow at 9am.

She managed to get out of the MD, that the accusation was made 5 minutes after she phoned in sick.

The letter states this is a 'Disciplinary meeting'.

Sarah has written all past accounts of when she felt bullied by this loud mouth manager. She is a flexible person that works well with everyone and as much as she hated this manager. (me being her husband hears this stuff week in week out) she always displays a proffesional attiitude and does her job to the best of her ability.
 
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Indeed it is 100% fact and yes this as well as her poorly mouth has caused more stress than I've seen in her since I met her 15 years ago.

She's not convinced about the taking further sick leave though. She's quite determind to speak her mind at this meeting. Would you honestly believe this to be the best advice. I'd love for her to do this and get some propper medication and care for the stress she has been put under, but she's quite focused on tomorrow's events now.

Assuming she did take futher sick leave can they legally do anything on the assumtion she is 'skiving' or just avoiding the accusations?. Will a doctors note cover this?

I assume if she provides a doctors note this will cause great anger and frustration to her manager and will make things worse and they will get sneaky and nark them all off doing herself no favours.

Just to confirm this is a small company with no official HR department she is aware of. It's just admin staff and factory workers. I'll ask her to check the structure of the company if this helps, but so little time to prepare so no doubt it's all gonna happen tomorrow.

I really appreciate the advice given. It's very helpful to be able to post here.

She now wants to look for another job but does not want to be unemployed in the meantime.
 
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Wiggins said:
I do feel for the OP's girlfriend. My wife has just been through a very similar situation that started Novemer last year. They tried all the tricks in the book regarding performance and 'procedure'. Unfortunately her company finally made redundancy's and she was one of them while being off sick so unfair dismissal was off the cards.

However, she has now got the weekend to decide whether to accept a tidy sum of money as she took them for lack of 'duty of care' and won. I cannot go into it for legal reasons but if the OP wants to message me, I will be more than happy to advise what route we went down.

If the doctor signs her off sick, she is off sick period and her company needs to address the way they are handling this very seriously or it could be another one that gets stung. I'm assuming she has been there over 1 year?

I would advise she documents all of it and calls Acas as soon as she gets home. They are extremelly good at advising and will appoint a legal representative if she has a good case.

Good luck. :)
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I'm still awaiting contact from my wife and probably won't speak to her till later on this evening. Thanks for the offer to message you. Dependin gon today's outcome I may be in touch
 
Work Disciplinary (Update)

Me wife has returned from her disciplanery meeting. 11:30 > 13:30.

The meeting Itself
Manager had no written proof, pretty much based on things that have been said. eg. I had to remind Sarah to do this on a number of occasions or Sarah had not done this on such and such a date.
Regarding Internet access they are stating they can gather this information from the ISP if needed.

Sarah has said that since she started the company she has looked at the occasional website, never for more than 1 minute and not at all in the last 3-4 weeks.

The Outcome
Sarah has been given two options.
Option 1 - Return to work on Monday and undergo a strict and detailed report on perfomance. If exppectations are not met instant dismisal will occur with no reference

Option 2 - Resign from work before 5pm this evening (Thats less that 4 hours) and the company will pay her till the end of May and give her 1 months additional pay as a good will gesture. and provide a reference for future employers.
When Sarah quized the good will gesture she was told 'We are not the sort of comanpy that wants to see you pennyless when you have bills to pay'

she has till 5pm to decide.

If she takes option 1 and returnes to work she is certian the expecations will suddenly rise and it will be 'arranged' that she can't meet them.
 
employment lawyer want £100 + VAT.
She's in a right pickle and can't concentrate, sat in the car in the car park where she works

She's trying Acas now
 
Wiggins said:
Call Acas as they will put her through to someone quick seeing as though she has a few hours. She really needs to speak to someone who deals with Employment Law.

Calling CAB will only tell you to call Acas.

Has she been there over a year?

Is she still on any probation?

Acas regional helplines
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No. She has worked for the company for 5 months. She had a review after 3 months as promised. This was undomcumented and felt more like an interigation as to what her intentions were than a review.
 
Yes I do think she'll find work again soon.
so take the money and run?

Well I'll let her decide after she has spoken to Acas and whoever else she phones.
 
Thanks all

Well it's over for now. After speaking to Acas it seems she hs no chance with her limited time worked. She called her boss and took option number 2. Now it's just a case of waiting for this in writing.

Interestingly they have bumped her off with a decide now or lose everything threat. If we had the money it would have certainly being interesting to take matters further. In the real world she now needs to move on and look for another job.
 
Things have taken a strange turn.

Her boss has asked her for a resignation letter, following which he will write a 'glowing' reference and post to her. She can then make any adjustments she see's fit and return. Once confirmed this will be the reference the boss will use when her next employer asks.

Within 20 mins of the resignation phonecall my friend has called to me to ask if Sarah is okay after getting sacked. The link is Sarah's work colleague (who knows nothing about this) has told her husband who has told his mate who has told me.

Sarah was infirmed today's events are strictly confidential between the 3 of them attending.

Probably means nothing and I'm sure the team needed to know she will no longer be working there, but those rumors and whispers took all of 20 mins to travel. So much for the confidentiality and there was no sacking anyway.

The last thing she to her boss on the resignation call was.......
There is an invoice on my desk that needs chasing up on Monday. I would have dealt with this today. They will ask for me so please apologise I can't deal with this for them.
 
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Repta said:
Make sure you get everything in writing, e.g. The 2 months pay before you sends the resignation letter.
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Yes this is the only concern now. From the phone call it's requested that Sarah sends this letter asap. I'll make sure she requests this in writing, however she has this written on the minutes of the meeting and a 3rd party attended too.

Edit. The MD stopped writign the minutes before this offer was made.

bah. This is getting complicated. I wonder if they try and deny this was said once she sends the resignation letter.
 
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