Employment Law Update – Poor Workplace Investigation Leads to Award £40k to Employee Who Stole From Company
28 / 04 / 2011
Mr Burns was employed as an operations manager by Nottingham Rehab Supplies Ltd Allegations were made that he had received between £400 and £500 for the sale of company property to gypsies. Mr Burns denied the allegations and the Head of HR, Ms Cook, made further enquiries. One of the staff, Mr Pickering, stated that Mr Burns had sold the...
Employment Law Update – Workplace Investigations
27 / 04 / 2011
HR professionals and managers tend to know about the disciplinary process and the requirement to carry out an investigation to establish the facts before starting formal disciplinary proceedings connected with misconduct. It’s surprising how few people are really able to investigate thoroughly. Most of us are born asking open questions. “Why do flies flying the right way up, but land...
Sick Or Sack?
01 / 04 / 2011
Employees who have been invited to attend a disciplinary hearing often go off sick, usually with stress or depression. So you reschedule, but they are still signed off sick. This can go on for months (if you allow it to do so). As the employer you need to address the disciplinary issue within a reasonable time frame allowing the individual...
Dismissal In Absentia
22 / 03 / 2011
Yesterday I chaired a disciplinary meeting and dismissed an employee in her absence. This was the third attempt to hold the meeting. It had twice been rescheduled to accommodate the employee and this time she simply failed to show. I considered the facts in her absence and made a decision based on the information available to me. Sometimes employees choose...
Back To Work With A Bang!
21 / 03 / 2011
UK employers seem to suffer a very high incidence of “chronic Monday-itis”. Short absences for relatively minor matters form the vast majority of ill health absence, so it’s important to deal with this type of absence effectively. Return-to-work meetings are one of the most effective tools in the managers’ arsenal of absence management techniques. Unfortunately many mangers dislike carrying out...