Dismissed from work.

OP - I have been in a slightly similar position - although mine was labelled about competence and I signed a non disclosure agreement and got a decent payout. I moved on by finding a new job in a different sector and having lots of personal projects to focus on like DIY and looking after older parents. Above all - I surrounded myself with good friends who value me for myself not my job. It can feel very unfair and I felt a lot of shame and embarrassment. However ultimately you have to see it as a cosmic kick to move on and do something more rewarding. The world is so much bigger than one workplace. One other thought - you should have built up a nice pension from being there for so long with compound interest (compared to many of us who freelance, work for less generous corporates etc) so that will be a nice extra payout in twenty years time.

If you are female unions are total rubbish. Speak to an employment lawyer and if you have legal cover on your house insurance (or any insurance) it should cover the cost of all legal costs if a solicitor thinks your case has merit. Lawson West have been a good firm for this sort of thing.

Don’t wait. Get on it now.

Sometimes things happen for a reason though they seem shit at the time. I hope you can take some time to recover then find a job that suits you better. No job should be making us ill. It’s asking too much of someone.

That’s a good point, she’s not claiming this. She just is saying she’s gutted about it,

The thing is though as far as I can see Op hasn’t said she was unfairly dismissed. From page 1 other posters who don’t know anything of the situation have been suggesting surely she was. Op only asked for help “getting over” what happened.

I’m not being funny but what did you actually expect if you can’t do the job? Don’t get me wrong it sounds awful, and I’m sorry you went through so much. But that’s the job. There’s only so much that can be done to make adjustments, give training etc but if you fundamentally can’t cope with the job I’m not sure what other outcome you expected.

if you feel it’s unfair or discriminatory bring a claim against them

I work for a relevant organisation and there's a few things I'd say

1. Check your company handbook for the policy on attendance, absence review points and the procedure
2. Were you given certain warnings and at some point told that dismissal could be the outcome?
3. In terms of your anxiety, would it be covered under the Equality Act as a disability? And did your employer know about it and put things in place for that?
4. Probably most important at this point - how long ago was it? You'd need to appeal within their timeframe but in terms of pursuing any kind of legal process, you'd need to make a claim within 3 months minus one day of the dismissal. If you're out of time, it'd be up to an employment tribunal judge as to whether they'll hear it - but they are very strict about time limitations

It's important to know that in terms of dismissal, there is a difference between what is morally unfair, and what is legally unfair.

In many cases, as long as a proper procedure is followed, a dismissal can be "fair" even if you disagree with the "why"

See if you can get some legal advice?

So at the time of your dismissal you had already been back for four months full time?? That doesn’t sound right. You probably need to go through the terms and conditions/contract with a fine tooth comb to make sure due process was followed. I would have thought there would need to be a process of warnings and support offered before letting you go.
Are you sure there isn’t more to this? Maybe something about the absence only came to light later, like not following reporting procedures or not having proof of your health issues. How long were you off? You need someone who knows about employment law to help you.

Sorry not RTFT but I hope they dotted every I and crossed every T. I am former police staff. I hear you x

I’m not a HR professional so happy to be corrected.

Every police force will have an attendance standard such as a certain amount of time or periods you can have off In a rolling 12 month period.

You could’ve had anxiety / mental health issues covered under the Equality Act (Although I assume they’re well documented). The organisation has a legal obligation to implement reasonable adjustments to see if they can support you in remaining in Work. The keyword is reasonable. If you were struggling in your call takers role due to health issues, they should’ve put some restrictions in place for you and if the restrictions needed to be long-term, they could’ve looked at the Adjusted Duties panel- one of the outcomes of that would be relocating someone into an alternative position that they are able to do, which in your case would’ve been the helpdesk.

if you were dismissed solely for attendance, the typical route would be going down the UPP - (attendance) And there would be usually a stage 1, 2, 3 with 3 being the point where you can be dismissed. The two outcomes from each stage would either be no further action or formal
Attendance plan whereby you have to meet attendance standards during that formal
plan period and keep them up during the validity period afterwards.

The only way that they could or should be dealing with attendance or performance issues outside of the UPP is if you were in the probation, but you're clearly not in probation.

If you’ve been keeping your attendance up and not breached any formal Attendance plan and this is down to disability related illness and they haven't been through all of those stages then I think possibly it would be worth speaking to ACAS Regarding disability discrimination, especially
If you feel that adjustments weren't made and you were properly supported?

Honestly

Thank you for your service but no I think you should change jobs.

If work has affected you with anxiety, don’t go back, this is a new start. Maybe in the long run they’ve done you a favour.

Try to get very busy with your future to stop dwelling on how this part of your working life ended.

Um before you attack it’s always better to read properly, she was doing fine in the last 4 months prior to dismissal, in that she attended, she clearly states she was struggling in the role before hand and there were absences,

It's interesting how many people in this thread can't read.

Yes, the call handling isn't a good position for the OP any more - but she changed the job internallly and was doing front desk and it seems she was doing fine.

So the issue is that capability assessment happened when she was at her lowest- but she worked through that, managed to get stable, and was able to do her front desk job at the time of dismissal.

This must be the brief version. The Police are a similar employer to mine and the dismissal process is a long you. You mustve had other warnings and broken some targets that were set. You will have been given multiple chances.
So if you cant do the job due to it being too traumatic and upsetting for you then its a capability issue.
Also im pretty sure your employer will have offered you decent sick pay, possibly 6 months full pay then 6 months half pay.
So how long should an employer keep paying someone for not doing the job? What would you do if you owned a business and you staff were repeatedly off sick? It would affect your resources and cost you money. How long could you sustain that? It gets to the stage where enough is enough.

I’d speak to ACAS - see if they feel you have grounds for unfair dismissal. If you moved to another role and hadn’t been off sick for four months then it does seem harsh.

First of all, I really have huge respect for anyone who does this job. My brother did it for about 5 years before training to become an officer. It’s a tough job, but I couldn’t do it.

Secondly, I remember him telling me that counselling was offered to all call handlers whenever they needed it - understandable due to the nature of the calls.

Were you ever offered this or made aware that it was an option? I know counselling isn’t a magic solution to everything and doesn’t work for everyone, but I always thought it was good that they offered this option.

My advice to you would be to try and move on from this (easier said than done, I know). You’re the same age as me and I can’t imagine the toll that kind of job would take on you mentally if you’ve been doing it for so long, but you’ll have a lot of transferable skills you can use to look for another role that isn’t so mentally taxing, and even think about retraining if time and finances allow.

Try not to let this get you down too much and maybe look at it as an opportunity 💕

You’re kind of agreeing with me but also not. The regulations aren’t different, the law still
applies, they just have different processes such as Reg 13 ETC but said are usually just development plans ETC. Specific processes should have been followed along with ample time to improve and adjustments offered. Staff in the call centre would have more scope for adjustments also. Reg 13 also applies to probationers only.

I don't think without all the information we can help at all

How often were you off sick? Was it in bouts of 6 weeks return for a few months then 4 months off again then return then off again like a yo-yo? Had you talked to your bosses about your anxiety were you getting help from medication and therapists
We're you honest
Did you attempt to fall pam assist did you talk to your union at any point before the dismissal??

I am really sorry your going through this it must be awful

if anything they have more tolerance! I know of people who cannot be operational due to ill health and they will not get sacked because of it! There is a such thing as the equality act.

I am assuming you mean that you were medically discharged? As they cannot legally simply ‘dismiss’ you for ill health. So you would be getting full pension and everything? If so, yes it is upsetting, but you cannot continue to do a stressful job when you are not up to it. Sucks but there it is XX

@user1464187087 l don't have much to say regarding your legal position but I do want to send a little message of moral support. Anyone who works in a job like yours - police, fire, ambulance, social work, and many other professions - will see things they can't unsee, that most of us are lucky enough not to encounter. It's people like you who make the world go round. Good luck.

The regulations are completly different for coppers and police staff. You can be reg 13 we can't.. there's a process that needs to be followed. Before they can dismiss someone of that long a service without the possibilities of a tribunal.

Former police officer here. In my experience the police do have form for low tolerance towards employees with differences/disabilities ETC and it may have been that they saw it as an inconvenience that they didn’t want to accommodate. My advice would be to have a discussion with ACAS and explore an appeal.