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I work for a large employer which having recently announced 1800 redundancies out of 30000 employees, seemingly they have decided to do this by forcing people out.
I have been given notice of a formal disciplinary in a few days for:
- Failure to give notification of being off work one day.
- Repeated (more than 5 times) late into the office.
We have an email system to a main generic email to state if you are off sick or for parental leave. I had emailed this, explained that my T1 diabetic daughter was ill in the email with shingles and high blood glucose readings, so could not attend school. It turns out this email for some reason went to a different inbox folder, and they have now admitted this. But still say i did not answer their calls, but i could not as i was with my daughter at GP.
Secondly i have more than five instances (around 9 times in 12 months) of being late into work, my issue here is that often i am at work for 7.50am, but by the time i've logged into PC, and fired up the phone system that records this, it is 8.05am. I have asked if the card system we use to enter the building records actual time i arrive.
Plus i am on occasion late, my wife starts work at hospital before me and i have to get daughter ready for school and drop her at the in-laws for 7am. So if her blood glucose is too high or too low, i need to address this before taking her there, in addition, the road to work is terrible and i live 45 minutes from work, it is a rural A-road with multiple accidents, flooding recently and slow traffic.
My issue is that if i am going to be late i will message manager and time is made up.
There are far worse people for lateness and sickness in department who are young with no kids, nor a diabetic child to look after and who live 10 minutes away.
But i seem to have been singled out for the disciplinary.
I have had no prior warnings, despite the paperwork saying if i had been late 3 times, i should of had verbal warning?
Any help, assistance or tips?
Bloody eck. This all sounds a bit harsh on you buddy!
Sorry to hear these sort of things tbf.
They are on a very sticky wicket when you have a child with disabilities (my lad has T1 and it wasn't easy when he was younger).
As you've said, you have made up time. Warnings need to be informal first though.
Very sticky for them.... look at working families pages
The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. This includes direct discrimination by association, such as treating a parent or carer less favourably – for instance refusing their flexible working request – because they have a disabled child (EBR Attridge LLP and another v Coleman (No 2) UKEAT/0071/09).
I think what gets at me most is that he measures have been brought in due to the youngsters in the call centre part of the business, they often have huge amount of sickness and lateness, they've had days where 20% haven't turned up, most of them are 18-22 years of age.
I work in a different part, but it seems with the redundancies it is easier to tar everyone with same brush and try to push quite a few out. I wouldn't mind, but i am the nest performing in a team which is one of the few that turn in a decent profit.
Formal disciplinary doesn't mean you're gonna get the sack. Go in state that you do not agree with the disciplinary and give your reasons. They can either accept them or not.
Then start looking for another job as they sound like nobs!
i have told that there will be an independent manager there and it is for him to review and decide if i am to be dismissed and if so, it can be straight away.
Sounds a bit rubbish, but pretty standard. Especially the enforcement of rules that aren't normally rigourously enforced. Can you time how long it takes from door to log-in to show an 8.05 log in means you were on time? The day off thing shouldn't be an issue if the procedure is to email and you did that then that should be enough. Whether you answered the phone is irrelevant unless there is something in the procedure about also phoning in
Only other thing is to know that HR and the independent manager both work for the company and will mostly be on their side. As above, have your facts ready, state your case, hope for the best, prepare for the worst
A business of that size will surely have a formal written policy covering disciplinary process. Typically this will be verbal warning -> written warning -> second written warning -> potential dismissal. Get hold of the policy, read it, if it's not being followed then ask them why.
How long have you worked for the company?
You say that you've agreed with your manager that you'll work back the time - this sounds to me as though work has thus far been OK with you coming in a couple of minutes late occasionally, in which case why is it such a problem now all of a sudden?
Take a colleague in with you.
Oh, and get out of bed ten minutes earlier. (-:
I suffered from this years ago just before they had to pay me a big pile of cash to go through redundancy.
Are you a member of a union? If not does your employer have one? Their rep might be happy to sit in with you 'informally'.
If you're being 'managed out' you need to make the look for easier prey.
Find out their disciplinary procedure, they can't jump steps - if it says and informal chat is stage 1 for say, 2 latenesses, then they can't just jump to step 3 because you have 9. HR Teams are usually incredibly systematic, they might be being forced to do something, but will return to type if they can.
Break down their argument, don't go down under weight of accusation:
Sickness - if the process is to e-mail a specific mailbox to report sickness, show them the e-mail. That's it. If their process specifically calls for you to be available for calls afterwards, explain you were with the doctor and couldn't answer them, if it doesn't don't be drawn into a debate about what's 'reasonable' or 'right or wrong' - you're in the clear unless they want to claim your daughter wasn't actually sick, they won't.
Lateness - can you be specific about how many times you were on-time, but not early enough to be logged it by 8am? That's not late, the might state "employees must be on time to ensure they're ready to work by blah blah blah" but it's meaningless. If you can get the number below the threshold, then again, don't be drawn into debates.
Pfft, but I'm getting carrier away, speak to Union, most are dying to go to battle with the bosses.
Wow, I just can't imagine working in a place like that. Sounds crap. Life is too short to put up with that kind of nonsense.
I would love to just walk away, trouble is a rural area with not so many jobs about and i ended up here by default 3 1/2 years ago having been made redundant already 3 times in 5 years!
Read your contract on warnings and disciplinaries and read the Gov pages on redundancy processes.
Get your evidence/emails ready and take a colleague in with you to take notes if possible. As above, objective to move them to another easier target... try and avoid a full on handbag flailing I said/you said type thing. Work on facts.
Do the whole disciplinary in an American accent. There’s no way they’ll be able to stick with it.
OR
Do the whole thing via a glove puppet:
*mime puppet whispering in your ear*
“Mr. Wuffles thinks that’s very unfair.”
Silly answers aside, the points made above are good. Familiarise yourself with the disciplinary procedure. All communication in writing, with meetings minuted. Take an extra (preferably friendly) pair of ears into any meetings with you.
Good luck.
Great thanks all.
Oh to be a single man and trouble free so i could just tell me to stick their job up their 'arris.....!
There needs to be clear paper trail, which follows company policy, leading to this disciplinary.
If all this is coming as a surprise to you, then the company is in error.
However, on a general note, if a company want rid of person, then that's going to happen.
Bring the evidence that you informed them you would be absent
Time the log on process to show it takes X minutes and a post 8am login doesn't mean you were at your desk late - in the building doesn't count!
Can they prove you were issued and acknowledged receipt of company disciplinary procedure?
Study the procedure so they can't take liberties
Bring a witness and get them to take detailed notes.
If they dismiss you it would seem from your side of the story they are on shaky ground and see citizens advice re tribunal as you have more than 2 years service
Consider a "Subject Access Request" for all emails and internal memos where your name is mentioned under GDPR this will scare the bejesus out of them (believe me this is from experience)
Yes you have the right to take somebody along with you.
The redundancy process relies on a scoring system.
They have to grade all employees, by the sounds of it this is a hearing, take representation who at the very least can witness it.
Prepare notes for each instance.
If you were at the doctors and couldn't answer the call, did you call them back straight after? If not why not?
As well as reading the firm's policy and writing everything down ASAP also have a read of the ACAS website and if you want call them - it costs nothing (bar any call costs).
I suspect this is merely triggered by an attending work policy ie 5 episodes of being late triggers this automaticvally. You need to go to disciplinary to have had even an informal warning.
So thats my suspicion. Its an automatically triggered process and you will go in to have a chat, explain yourself and leave with nothing on your record.
My workplace any more than 3 uncertificated sickness periods in a year gets you to a formal meeting to discuss capacity
Big companies use inflexible policies like this to catch the chancers without it looking like they have been after individuals
I could be wrong of course. Check policy, employee handbook and take your union rep along
Missed a couple of posts. How much service do you have? Is this an american company?
You can only be dismissed on the spot for gross misconduct and no way this is. As others have said not following policy means automatically its an unfair dismissal.
All of the above
I assume you're not in a union? Take a mate with you. Brief them to keep you on track. Give them a list of all the things you want to say. Make sue you both know the policy inside out. Take evidence off everything you can including them being inconsistent
Oh and best of luck. Seems really tough
Not a US company no, a large UK Employer.
I note the comments about it being automatically triggered, if it was fair i would not have an issue, my biggest issue is that there are far worse offenders, with no reason to be late. If i a going to be late, whether it be due to daughters T1 or traffic, i always follow the Formal process of an email to general email and i always drop team leader a text with reason too.
Often if it is traffic, a large swathe of the office are late as the road is a nightmare, goes from dual carriageway to a single lane, then back to dual, so huge bottleneck and all it takes is a breakdown or tractor going along it and it is slow.
I have tried to change hours, but this is denied despite flexible working supposedly being open as my attendance between certain hours is a "business need". Strangely my team leader has had 4 out of the last 6 weeks off as he accrued loads of holiday whilst on paternity leave
Ask to record the interview on a phone etc, so you have a record of what was said. If they ask why, just say your solicitor recommended you insist on it.
Then start looking for another job as they sound like nobs!
This
Citizens Advice have some useful information which may help you - Link here
Is there something in your contract about how they define starting time for work? It seems odd that they seem to be using the time you log on to your computer - what if on those occasions you arrived at the office and had a work related conversation with your boss, a colleague or one of your team? Are you someone who leaves on the dot at the end of the day or do you sometimes work over to finish a piece of work - if you do the latter it should count as a mitigating factor?
As others have said get someone to accompany you and ask them to take notes.
Good luck!
Often if it is traffic, a large swathe of the office are late as the road is a nightmare, goes from dual carriageway to a single lane, then back to dual, so huge bottleneck and all it takes is a breakdown or tractor going along it and it is slow.
That's a reason, not an excuse though. You can't on the one hand tell them it's because everyone knows the road is full of traffic, then say it's unreasonable to expect you to account for that in your commuting times!
My OH is abysmal at that, "sorry I'm late, traffic was bad", it's the M4, traffic is always bad!
Maybe you're right and "large swathes" of the office are going to get disciplined, your just either first on the list or others have just kept quiet after getting their collar felt.
I'd get looking for a job, best case you find one and get redundancy money as well! Worst case you get a new job.
Gosh that sounds like my old employer, thank God I got out of it. Some good advice above but tbh i wouldn't spend another day in a place like that. Get your cv updated and get something else set up life's too short.
My workplace any more than 3 uncertificated sickness periods in a year gets you to a formal meeting to discuss capacity
Same here, and it's a rolling year not 1st Jan -> 1st Jan. It's as much corporate arse-covering as it is an investigation into employees potentially taking the proverbial. For instance, are you off with work-related stress because of workplace bullying? HR want to know about things like that before it starts getting litigious and expensive. One question we ask is whether there's anything we can do as a company to help.
The automated aspect of it is pretty brainless. I fell foul of this a couple of years back. I came down with flu, had a couple of days off sick, felt better and dragged my carcass into work for a day, then had a relapse so was off sick again. As far as the HR system is concerned this is two separate periods of absence, so one other sick day inside the two year period around that date was sufficient to trigger a review. I'd have been better off staying home.
See if they have a section for dependant care within the absence policy.
My experience of this is that you cannot be penalised for time off to care for a dependant (in your case, being late due to your daughter). The company can withhold pay for those situations but shouldn't penalise you for it as part of an absence management process.
Regarding the no notification of an absence, if the policy states you must follow the process then that's a reasonable expectation. If you can provide evidence that the email was sent in time and to the correct address you can sleep easy as it's not your fault it went to the wrong address due to an it cock up which they have admitted. Given this, the fact that you were with the doctor should excuse you from not answering the phone. The only challenge I'd have as the hearing manager to that would be why didn't you return the call when you saw the missed calls but I'm being picky. Check up on what the actual processes are and be confident if you've done what they ask.
Go in there and be honest and state facts highlighting parts of the process that you have followed but don't be cocky as that often doesn't go across well, especially if it's an independent manager who you may not know as they might want to make a name for themselves by going in heavy handed.
Agree with pretty much all of the above. I'd definitely recommend getting a colleague in to act as an independent witness and take notes. If you can't find anyone to volunteer then yeah record it on a phone. Will put them on the back foot from the off 😈
At our place we had someone pulled up on the number of sick days they'd taken, as it exceeded the amount in a rolling 12 month period. Except it didn't HR decided to look at a fixed 12 month period. I pointed this out and HR had to get an external law firm to confirm the definition of a rolling 12 month period. How I laughed when they forwarded the email onto my colleague from the law firm which said the same thing as I had. It's plain English for god sake.
What I'm trying to get at is that some of the HR processes can be automated and not that clever so it may just be a storm in a teacup, but definitely go in prepared.
Thank you all.
I have hopefully covered my bag as best i can, in answer to the day off where i supposedly failed to contact them, i have a copy of the email to them found by our HR team, of my daughters medical notes showing her attendance at the Drs and the reason, plus her school have written to confirm her non-attendance at school, so i can no more than that.
For those times i have been late and could not have avoided it, having to wait for daughters blood glucose levels to rise/ fall to acceptable levels, where i have had to quickly change her insulin pump or where traffic really has beaten me (i do give myself a barrier of around 15 minutes when i can for the journey of 45 minutes), then i have provided copies of emails to work, messages on phone to team leader and daughters blood glucose records from her CGM to support my actions.
I don't think i can do anymore really.
Fingers crossed!
I don’t think i can do anymore really.
Read the HR policy make sure procedure is being followed?
Have done Cougar and the more i read it, the more i think they are shakey ground really, especially as i have spoken to an employment lawyer.
"Secondly i have more than five instances (around 9 times in 12 months) of being late into work, my issue here is that often i am at work for 7.50am, but by the time i’ve logged into PC, and fired up the phone system that records this, it is 8.05am. I have asked if the card system we use to enter the building records actual time i arrive."
I had this too in my old job in a bank, "coincidentally" when we were going through redundancies- my line manager and her regional manager both claimed that if I wasn't "ready to start work" at 9am I was late, and definted "starting work" as being sat at my desk looking at the system we use. Things like waiting for safes to open, logging onto systems etc (which took about 15 minutes) weren't work but were basically part of my commute! Unsurprisingly when it went upstairs this went away but it was still considered "bad attitude" that I'd not just agreed to work for free as they demanded. They didn't have a leg to stand on but that didn't seem to matter much to them.
I had this too in my old job in a bank, “coincidentally” when we were going through redundancies- my line manager and her regional manager both claimed that if I wasn’t “ready to start work” at 9am I was late, and definted “starting work” as being sat at my desk looking at the system we use. Things like waiting for safes to open, logging onto systems etc (which took about 15 minutes) weren’t work but were basically part of my commute! Unsurprisingly when it went upstairs this went away but it was still considered “bad attitude” that I’d not just agreed to work for free as they demanded. They didn’t have a leg to stand on but that didn’t seem to matter much to them.
We had a similar argument in my old job (chemcial laboratory) about this.
Our site consisted of several buildings and the canteen, lockers / changing rooms etc where you changed out of your commute clothes and into your essential PPE was separate to the actual labs (as it should be for H&S). The clocking on device was in the labs. So people could arrive on site at 8am, spend 10 minutes getting changed, walking across to the labs etc and by the time they'd clocked in, the system would show them as late.
Management said we should be in the lab working at 8am. We (the mere worker plebs) said that putting on essential PPE was part of the job, not something to be done before that as it amounted to an extra 40 minutes per day (before work, before lunch, after lunch, after work at 10 minutes / time) getting changed that we'd be giving free to the company.
Eventually got the union involved and miraculously, the accusations that we were a bunch of workshy little system cheats went away. I think we all had a couple of disciplinaries (and threats of them) before we called in the union.
Just check the policies carefully, take notes of everything said and always have a representative in there with you (and check what the rep can say or do in advance as well, that should also be in the policies).
To my mind, if it takes you ten minutes to walk through the building to your desk then that's really part of the commute, you haven't started work. If instead it takes you ten minutes of administration to boot up PCs etc then that should be considered part of the job.
I've been in that situation too. First tech job, tech support in a call centre, the company's attitude was that if you weren't on the phone to a customer by 8:30 you were late. We were logged by the phone system, so the first thing you'd do when your arse hit the chair is log in to the phone and then immediately hit Busy / Wrap Up whilst you got set up. They didn't like this and we routinely got bollockings for it, but they couldn't argue that we were late for work and thus threaten disciplinary action.
Which is a point in itself actually,
i am at work for 7.50am, but by the time i’ve logged into PC, and fired up the phone system that records this, it is 8.05am.
Does it really take 15 minutes to log into a phone? Does it get powered down every night and have to boot up? Even back in 1992 it took like five seconds to stick an extension number and PIN into a phone, could you not do as I said above?
The first thing they must do is invite you to an investigation meeting, not a disciplinary, then after that the evidence and any conclusions is passed to another senior member of staff, who will invite you to another meeting, you must be given at least 48hrs notice and the right to representation by either a union official or another member of staff- both of you must be allowed time (paid) to prepare your defence and attend the meetings.
You have the right to record or take minutes at any meeting, make sure you get all members present to state their name for the tape or sign a copy of the minutes- they are legally obliged to do this.
If at the end you do not agree with their decision you have the right of appeal to a more senior member of staff or even to ACAS - this is a free service.
I am normally the one dishing out the warnings so I know all the potential pitfalls!
For further advice you can contact ACAS or the Citizens Advice- both a free and invaluable service!
Hope this helps - Good luck
I had a disciplinary once. Was called in over timekeeping (a sketchy reason at best) but turned out they were trying to stitch me for gross misconduct. Long story short, I had cleared working some overtime on my rostered day off with my boss. My boss approved said overtime and my boss signed off my timesheet at the end of the week. Months later it turned out my roster was wrong and I should have been in work normally on the day I claimed overtime. I sat down in from tod a panel including my boss and his best mate. They accused me of falsely claiming overtime payments. I stated that my line manager not only was responsible for my original roster pattern, but also booking me my overtime and checking and signing off my timesheet for the week. I had an email trail to back up my side of the story. I still recieved a final written warning. I was advised by our union to 'accept whatever the punishment was' rather than to stand up for what I believed (and still do) was my line manager's cock up. I regret it to this day. However, a couple of years later I ended up in a bullshit disciplinary over a training course that I was sent on, but didn't have the equipment to do. I sat down, said I would listen to their case and then seek legal representation. Later that morning I got a phone call saying there was no case to answer. Never heard anything else about it.
Dunno where I'm going with this. If you're in the right, you're in the right and don't let it go. State your case and have evidence to back it up. Be prepared to fight the company if they're dicks like mine was!
Alternatively, take a slap on the wrist and carry on regardless.
First rise a greavence against the disaplinery hearing stating you have never been made aware off any issues that it should not be at a formal stage. This will stall the hearing, also send them a copy of the government website dependency policy an state you have a dependent that also has other health issues an state that as per the policy you have broken no rules as you always made them aware off the issues when you made it to work and as per the policy that is aloud. Look.uo the policy yourself basically you can do what ever is needed for an emergency an you make them aware when you can not before hand.hole this helps
Put in the greavence victimisation aswell HR will shit it. Say you are being victimised because your being treated unfair pulled out as others have time off for unjust reasons so your being treated differently and unfairly because your daughter has health issues. I bet they drop the disaplinery
We have an email system to a main generic email to state if you are off sick or for parental leave. I had emailed this, explained that my T1 diabetic daughter was ill in the email with shingles and high blood glucose readings, so could not attend school. It turns out this email for some reason went to a different inbox folder, and they have now admitted this. But still say i did not answer their calls, but i could not as i was with my daughter at GP.
probably all ready been said but you cannot be disciplined for emergency parental leave. Not under any obligation to answer their calls either.
Yeh I just stated above they can't touch you for it
Just remember this is you and them. Forget what others are doing or "getting away with". Know the policy and grievances procedures, have your evidence, take a rep/friend, take notes. Keep calm and work through the points they highlight, do not stray from them. Be impersonal.
Try and take the emotion out of it and treat it as a pure logic exercise. They are examining if your record is grounds for dismissal without payment of redundancy. Your job is to provide evidence that it isn't.
independent manager
From an external, non-affiliated company or from another office? If the latter he/she is not independent and will do what they have been told by HO.
I'd just go to your line manager's office beforehand and go full Fight Club
Secondly i have more than five instances (around 9 times in 12 months) of being late into work, my issue here is that often i am at work for 7.50am, but by the time i’ve logged into PC, and fired up the phone system that records this, it is 8.05am. I have asked if the card system we use to enter the building records actual time i arrive.
Where I’ve worked in the past with a card-based clocking in system, it’s been the case that employees were paid from that time.
I note the comments about it being automatically triggered, if it was fair i would not have an issue, my biggest issue is that there are far worse offenders, with no reason to be late.
Do you know that they haven't or won't be subjected to this procedure?
I used to work in a place where there were several people who were always late, often by just a few minutes. We had a "keying-in" system which produced reports for line managers. All these people had to do was to get up ten minutes earlier but it was some sort of psychological thing. It was a lot of grief for all involved - the system being inflexible and the people being unable to change their behaviour. Lots of excuses about unexpected happenings like traffic.
my biggest issue is that there are far worse offenders, with no reason to be late.
Don't say this. You are there to discuss your timing not throw others under the bus. It makes it seem like because you are not as bad as some, you're golden.
whether it be due to ... traffic
Rubbish reason. Set off earlier. I assume everyone else uses the same road? As a defence it will undermine your whole argument.
Isn't it funny how all these companies that slam you for being 5 minutes "late" or leaving 5 mins early, when you say "hey, I only had 5 mins for lunch cos I was on a call / replying to an urgent email" etc.... "your lunch is your responsibility".
Sounds like your place is just looking to half their staff by whatever means necessary. Of course, no organisations these days are top-heavy or over middle-management-ised are they....?
I think disciplinary record can be part of the selection criteria for compulsory/voluntary redundancy. Its not unknown for petty disciplines to be raised around redundancy time.
I don't know the process well enough to say if the following are accurate, but the disciplinary could affect the selection process and/or payments.
Could it prevent you being selected i.e. petty disciplinary secures your job
Could it mean you are more likely selected?
Or does it not affect the selection process, but does void out a voluntary payment at redundancy. i.e. cost reduction
Isn’t it funny how all these companies that slam you for being 5 minutes “late” or leaving 5 mins early, when you say “hey, I only had 5 mins for lunch cos I was on a call / replying to an urgent email” etc…. “your lunch is your responsibility”.
Oh, absolutely. I've worked at a couple of places where they'll be tapping their watch at 8:31am but gave no recognition to the fact that I was stuck on a call / outage till 7pm the previous day. The best advice I can give here is "don't work at those places," the last one actually made me ill both physically and mentally.
These days I'm old enough, cynical enough and grumpy enough to believe that the door swings both ways; my stance is "I'll work to rule if you want, but you won't like it." Fortunately I'm lucky enough to be measured on output rather than time and I have a very generous flexi-time agreement. I started work at 10am this morning because I had a rough night's sleep due to the heat; on Friday I started at 6am because I happened to wake up early. So long as I don't take the piss then my boss couldn't care less, and it's amazing how much stress that removes.
Take a shit in management's drawer before the meeting.
How did it go Op?
Bump for a result
cougar - your example there is plenty you can do as they are breaching WTD
Still bumping for a result.
There is plenty you can do as they are breaching WTD
Hahahahah
The WTD is a joke and easily worked around. If there isn’t already an opt out in your contract then as soon as you kick off they’ll start the procedure to alter you contract or find a reason to fire you.
I was asked to sign an optout of WTD when I joined my current company, I said don't be silly i'm not signing that. HR didn't bat an eyelid. Never heard anything about it since.
Utter bollox rayban. Its easily enforcable and what you say would be immidate unfair dismissal with no defense possible by the company. Much of WTD you cannot opt out of. 11 hours between shifts being one
cougar – your example there is plenty you can do as they are breaching WTD
There is now. Back where I'm referring to, either the WTD didn't exist or it was so new that I'd never heard of it.
Fair enough
No update from Scud probably isn't good news, if he's like the 95% of us that only access the forum whilst at work...
11 hours between shifts being one
Yet loads of nurses routinely do ‘late-earlies’ And no one bats an eyelid... 😏
late to early has now been changed everywhere I know to make the 11 hours off between shifts. Used to be 2-10 and 7-3. and night shift was 9 hours Its now 12-8 and 7-3 usually with night shift 12 hours. I bet you don't find a single one that does not have 11 hours off between shifts
Most nurse do condensed hours anyway - 3x13 hrs
Utter bollox rayban. Its easily enforcable and what you say would be immidate unfair dismissal with no defense possible by the company
Only if you’ve been in the company for more than two years. Again, doesn’t apply to much of the private sector as there is more of a culture of having to move to get a promotion. Staying at a company for less than two years is now fairly normal.
Bullshine.
being made to work outside the WTD does not need a two year qualification to take action. any dismissal because you took action would be automatically an unfair dismissal and again you would not need the two year qualification.
Sure some folk have stockholm syndrome but these laws are there to protect us and can be easily enforced.
tj you are absolutely technically correct. However you are also completely wrong. Youd have to prove your dismissal was due to WTD abuse, the employer could come up with plenty of other plausible reasons. Even if you win, payouts arent great. In reality employment law doesnt really support employees. Until awards are punitive some employers will continue to behave as they see fit.
any dismissal because you took action would be automatically an unfair dismissal
True. Proving it might be tricky, however.
Easy enough to prove but you are right in general that tribunal awards are too low. However cases like this can lead to greater sanctions. Criminal offenses may well have occured
Penalties for breaches of the regulations can be high
Breaches of working time limits can lead to improvement notices being issued. Subsequent failure to comply can lead to unlimited fines and imprisonment.
Employment tribunals can order appropriate compensation payments (limited to £86,444 where there has been an unfair dismissal).
being made to work outside the WTD does not need a two year qualification to take action. any dismissal because you took action would be automatically an unfair dismissal and again you would not need the two year qualification.
As others have said - good luck proving this in court.
Any corporate that knew what it was doing would manage you out on capability grounds and claim they didn't know a thing about the overtime you were doing and state that it wasn't approved.
Done it a few times - usually ending up in big payoffs under compromise agreements. Personally I got £7000 out of a private company for unfair dismissal when redundancy would have cost them £400! I have never met a competent HR person.
Plenty of cases have been brought under WTD and won - it doesn't matter if the overtime is approved or not. Its the companies responsibility to ensure you work within the WTD. Case law on this.
Bad case of stockholm syndrome? You forget both me and my other half have a lot of experience of making claims for unfair / illegal working practices.
The only thing they need to say that they thought you were working within the limits is your payroll statement.
Unless you are paid hourly there is no requirement to time keep other than that.
Don't take this personally, but there's a huge difference between the HR departments of a private healthcare firm and a big bank in London.
Looks like the law on record keeping might have changed https://www.hrlawlive.co.uk/working-time/
But only back in May of this year!
So things might change, but I know so many people doing well over the 48 hours so they can get all their work done. Doing 9 hour days, eating at their pcs, checking email as soon as they get up, finishing work remotely in the evening. It's endemic in some industries TJ.
Yet loads of nurses routinely do ‘late-earlies’ And no one bats an eyelid…
The (city based) trust I work for doesn't allow this, neither does the county trust nor the neighbouring trusts.
Done it a few times – usually ending up in big payoffs under compromise agreements. Personally I got £7000 out of a private company for unfair dismissal when redundancy would have cost them £400! I have never met a competent HR person.
You also have to consider that in many industries, they are small enough and connected enough that if you piss off enough people by taking a couple of companies to tribunal - you'll never work in that field again.
Again, TJ, it's easy to say these things when you work in one of if not the largest sector in the UK.
There also clear banding and progression routes within healthcare, that encourages working to rule as well. If progression in your industry relies on brown nosing select jerks, then fighting these battles is much harder.
Much of WTD you cannot opt out of. 11 hours between shifts being one
I bet you don’t find a single one that does not have 11 hours off between shifts
our 'union negotiated shift pattern' bypasses this. our shift pattern of 4 on/4 off/4 on/4 off/5 on/3 off also includes night cover between shifts, so we go to every call out within a 96 or 120 hour period. obviously you cant guarantee an 11 hour period off doing this, so they get around it by giving us 'compensatory rest' if we have a busy night. but that also gets broken into with the next call-out, so what we end up with is an 'average' 11 hours off.