They’re headhunting for DH’s job while he’s in it

[user47000000000]

DH heard from an industry connection that his job is being headhunted for on the quiet. Background is that his organisation is hyper critical and aggressive with horrible blame culture. He didn’t get a great review last year and an employee submitted a grievance against him (which wasn’t upheld) last year as well. He spoke to his boss last year and said he felt concerned he would lose his job and was completely reassured this was not the case and was told he was being paranoid.

We spoke to a solicitor who said that because he’s been in the organisation less than two years they can just get rid of him and pay only his notice.

This seems ridiculous. Is anyone able to offer any advice? Now poor DH has to go into work every day wondering if this is the day he’ll be told to leave. His organisation have no clue that he knows his role is being recruited for. He is obviously starting to look for a job on the quiet now but he (and I) are incredibly stressed as he’s the main breadwinner and the solicitor told us that legally they didn’t even have to pay his notice period.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Posting in AIBU for traffic.

In preparation for interviews, he needs to have a very clear statement in why he's moving on after a relatively short time. Bearing in mind the interviewer may know that his role is being recruited for. He'll be able to position it in an perfectly acceptable way, but get prepped for it so he doesn't get wrong footed by recruiters and interviewers.

*The solicitor is wrong , they do have to pay his notice period

I think there is some confusion in thr ops post. As she mentions it twice, the first time saying they had to pay it, the second time they didn't.

There is circumstances they wouldn't need to pay, for example if he refused to work his notice period.

It sounds like this could turn out to be a blessing in disguise TBH - why would your DH want to work in such a toxic place? Getting home at 6.30pm every day isn't worth it if it means working in a place where grievances are a common occurrence and there is minimal support to excel in your role

I can’t believe that you had to speak to a solicitor to figure out that you can be dismissed for virtually any reason (except discriminatory) before 2 years of service. That should be common knowledge, surely?

Prior to 2 years of service, you can’t take your employer to a tribunal for something like this unless you can prove that the employer was discriminatory against protected characteristics.

Unfortunately sometimes employers make their minds up before completing the disciplinary process and decide to sack the employee from the start - they are allowed to do so. The best thing for your husband to do is start searching for a new job.

mrex - not sure what your beef is but comments like “strolling out at 5:30” are very outdated. It’s generally accepted by most smart leaders that good work life balances motivates and benefits employees and ultimately the business too. DH often does emails etc in the evening however I am a firm believer you should be able to complete your job well in the time allocated to do it. Otherwise it’s your manager who is managing you poorly.

You sound rather old fashioned in your views

Solicitor is a friend - we wondered if there was any way of getting more out of them than just the notice. Solicitors comment was that yes they should pay notice but they might try and weasel out of it if they said he hadn’t performed in the role. Still - without formal perf mgt I think that would be hard to prove. Usually their business pay in lieu of notice

They could sack him for gross misconduct and not pay him his notice. However, depending on what his contract says re procedures, and whether these were followed, your dh may have a claim for breach of contract if they were to do that. My advice would be for him to jobsearch as fast as he can (can he even take a day of annual leave to work on CV and fire out applications./ call recruiters etc?) Meanwhile he should continue to turn up for work, do his very best, and keep his head down.

Sorry, I ought to add I am not for one second suggesting that your dh is guilty of gross misconduct- just that some unsavoury employers do this. It is then up to the wronged ex-employee to seek damages for breach of conduct, and it becomes a debate about whether the summary dismissal was justified or not (i.e. whether it was GM).
Having said that, if they normally favour PILON then it sounds to me that the imperative is getting people out the door fast ad giving them their notice as they go on their way. I don't think you have any leverage for negotiating anything more than the notice period or payment tbh.

*breach of contract, not conduct. Not having the best day, OP, apologies!

I figured what you meant :)
Thank you

Sorry to hear this OP. 2 things I wanted to add.

1. if your DH was headhunted into the role it is likely the same headhunter recruiting to replace him. Either because he has not done well putting you DH in the role and is contractually obliged to sort this or simply because he is retained to do all headhunting for the company. If your DH has a good relationship with him he may be happy to have a chat with him "off the record" and it may be he has sympathy and this pattern keeps repeating itself with other employees too

2. it may be that the headhunter has been asked just to have a look around the industry after the poor appraisal. It may be that they want to keep DH in the role but have some back up waiting in the wings just in case his performance doesn't improve. Suggest DH really ups his game although the company sounds toxic so he should still look around. However the more senior he is the longer this is likely to take

Good luck. Hope all works out.

It’s generally accepted by most smart leaders that good work life balances motivates and benefits employees and ultimately the business too

Op, yes of course this is the theory, but you will find very few companies who achieve it in reality. The fact of the matter more junior you are, or if you're paid hourly, it's more likely you will stick to your contracted hours. The more senior you get then it's simply about getting the job done, however long it takes, it's about performance.

Is one of the issues he is facing that he was not getting things done or rushing it and not doing it properly? I'm wondering if his desire to work only his contracted hours, is led to an issue in terms of his performance on the role.

I have to say your comments surprise me, given you say you are senior yourself.

I have no "beef" @user47000000000. I'm trying to help you understand the realities of the situation. You seem to feel like your DH has lost this magic job where he gets paid a lot with no late working expectation (even when he's failing to meet targets) and where he deserves training to meet the expectations of his role even though he's new and presumably brought in at an expected competence level. The reality of the current working world is that you and DH are simply mistaken. Companies train people to move UP a level or for changes, they don't expect to train a new hire to meet his role spec. Equally he's paid a lot because he's expected to achieve a certain amount; when he's failing he'd be expected as a high paid senior employee to work harder to put it right. Whether he can work from home or not is an entirely different matter, the problem is about the effort he's actually putting in. No manager will get a 3/4 on appraisal if they're doing even an ok job, whether fairly or not they think he's seriously underperforming. Instead of working to rectify that himself he's asked for more training, that won't be perceived well.

You both need to be realistic about what real companies expect of senior managers (and less senior ones for that matter) or it will only lead to problems in his next role too. If it isn't the right time in your lives for him to put in that effort in his career then take a step down or do some interim roles that have a lighter load. It's actually fine to take a lower level job where he can meet targets and go home early if that's the priority right now, it most likely pays less but there are trade-offs with everything.

In the business he works in most people are gone by 6. Of course there are longer days but culturally it’s not a long-hours place.

I don’t know the exact details of his review. It caused a lot of arguments between us as I am one who tackles things but he tends to bury his head so I wanted him to work out a plan to improve his performance, share with his boss for builds and ask for regular coaching / feedback etc so he could improve.

He didn’t and now we are here. That’s why I feel frustrated with him as I mentioned earlier.

He didn’t ask for training but coaching. I think that is acceptable. Yes you should be reaching your targets of the job you’re hired to do but if you underperform in an area I think it’s ok to ask the business to support you in tackling this...

Ok, I understand,

I would agree with a pp, if he was having to ask for help and coaching to do the job, it would indicate he lacked the skill set to do it, and should not have been employed into it, so something went wrong in the recruitment stage. I would guess this is why he didn't ask.he didn't want to admit he couldn't do it without help.

However this then puts the onus on him to find another way to learn and improve, which it seems he has been unable to do, so they are moving to replace him now.

The fact he asked his manager if he would lose his job, would indicate op his performance is very bad indeed.

Was he promoted into this role? As in was it a step up for him or a sideways move? And again, why did he move?

The MD called him personally and asked him to join the team. Sideways move from a similar business...

Is there any way back to thr old businesss?

What was the area he struggled in? In general terms, is it a softer skill like people people management, communication, or a hard skill like tech knowledge?

I am a firm believer you should be able to complete your job well in the time allocated to do it. Otherwise it’s your manager who is managing you poorly. Thats very danish. Are you danish? (Appreciate its not the point but its not often you see that attitude)

With the coaching to meet his targets because it depends on exactly what was said; if he was asking for input from his own boss that's a different matter.

I am a firm believer you should be able to complete your job well in the time allocated to do it. Otherwise it’s your manager who is managing you poorly.
This looks even sillier when it's re-posted by itself. You said your DH is a senior manager, well at some point the buck stops and somebody has to be responsible at work; that might be recruiting more people / working on cost saving / fixing the angry client situation / managing the health and safety issue... when it comes down to it the "I finished my hours so I went home" is fine for juniors, but it is never an acceptable excuse to regulators, company shareholders, fire brigade inquest etc etc etc. The reason there are multiple managers should be to share that load, but your DH absolutely must pull his weight to keep a senior level job. There is no UK industry where the directors are all off home before 6pm every day of the week and never have an issue to solve, there just isn't. Most directors with children will juggle the time successfully, e.g. work late on a Monday and Wednesday, work from home on Friday.

You should focus to this

I actually think this could be a good thing for his career as that place doesn’t bring out the best in him

Ultimately it takes two to tango and for whatever reason the company are not interested in a continued relationship with your husband. His best bet is to focus on the future.

The waters can be muddied around competence and toxic environment/bad fit but there is clearly an issue here.
Having seen the other side of performance issues I can easily imagine tales being spun about my “toxic” department.
We aren’t toxic. At all.
We are performance based.
We pay people a lot and expect them to deliver. On time. Every time. wellllll most of the time
But htey need to be able to assess risk and know when to escalate.

Candidly, there are a few red flags coming from your husband (eg burying head in sand) however most of the people I have performance managed were simply not suited to the job (rather than work in general), managing them out was in many ways a kindness as they were invariably miserable.

Based on my own dealings of this he still has some (limited) options and may want to negotiate with HR to agree a swift departure dependent on a preagreed basic reference and some gardening leave.

What sort of industry is it? Is there no chance of flexible working? We have some people who work from home on certain days. Others leave the office early to do the school run, then take calls at home in the evening when the children are in bed. There are ways of working and seeing the family if you break the day up differently, and that might make other empowers a better option. Obviously there are some roles where it's not possible to work remotely, but there will be other options for work than staying in a job that doesn't suit him, if you take a different approach - although it can be difficult to get a flexible arrangement when you'receive not already working for that employer.

A company that headhunts but cannot keep it confidential is not a good one in my view. What other confidential matters are leaked?

I wonder if them knowing it has been leaked would persuade them to be generous in any pay in lieu of notice. The talk to HR suggestion may be a good one.

What’s his notice period?