to think they can't sack a whole department?

[WhereForArtThouBray]

I work for a large company which is split into smaller companies. some of these companies deals with a particular aspect of the business, for example Plant procurement, Pensions, Fleet.

One of the companies/departments had a whistle blowing complaint made and whilst HR were investigating they uncovered lots of other things that were wrong.

The Managing Director and the Manager were both suspended whilst the investigation was ongoing and it has come to a point now where all of the staff members have been charged for Gross Misconduct and will be facing disciplinary proceedings with the group solicitor.

The misdemeanors are different in each case, some theft from the company for using company assets for their own benefit, some tax evasion and other things. The wrong doings were widely known about and accepted as a perk of working in that dept/company.

Surely HR can't dismiss an entire dept/company of staff in one fell swoop?

I am not implicated or involved, it doesn't affect me at all but these are colleagues I have worked with for a very long time so I am of course worried about them.

Of course the entire department can/should be sacked. They are all rotten to the core. I'm surprised you say they are all good people as good people don't tend to defraud their employer.

I imagine it kind of like macdonalds staff being allowed to take the left over burgers home at the end of the night

But McDonald's staff aren't allowed to do that. All food out of time (can't remember the correct phrase) get's binned and counted (counting discarded food is not the best job in the world) and then binned again.

I used to do internal investigations as part of a previous job, and if they've charged everyone with gross misconduct then my strong suspicion is that there was probably a lot more going on than you know about. People occasionally bring unfair dismissal lawsuits arguing that the conduct was known about by managers, was common practice in the company, etc, so firing them for it was unfair, and this argument almost always fails. You are expected to have your own moral compass and if you see dodgy stuff happening, whistleblow to HR/compliance/legal, not join in.

Also, for senior management and the directors, they can increasingly face consequences themselves of misconduct isn't stamped out - which includes setting an example of zero tolerance to the rest of the employees, as well as weeding out the wrongdoers. If I'm a director, I don't care that a particular department may struggle with temps for a few months, but I do care that I could be disqualified from being a company director for 5 years or more if I let a dodgy culture continue.

Anyone who thinks they are too important to the company to get rid of if the shit hits the fan is delusional- ask Harvey Weinstein!

Surely HR can't dismiss an entire dept/company of staff in one fell swoop?

Of course they can. I have seen it happened with no wrong doing, just standard redundancies and the department starting again from scratch a few weeks later with a different name

It's not even that unusual.

At our head office they made almost everyone in two departments redundant. It was the heads of both departments who had been at fault but it was felt that the staff were all tainted with the same laissez faire attitude so best to have a clean out.

I honestly don't think the actual staff are bad people, they took advantage of various perks with the knowledge of their managers.

I don't think anything that results in gross misconduct can be described as perk. And staff engaging in such behaviour with or without the knowledge of the managers may not be bad people (I would still question their characters especially as it's been going on for years!), but are at least incredibly stupid.

Wow I am so suprised how common it is. There probably is more to it than I am party to of course.

I also didn't know macdonalds workers weren't allowed to eat the burgers. I worked at a chip shop once and we were allowed to eat what we wanted.

Maybe it is more like a mechanic using the garages tools to fix his own car? I don't want to be too specific. Two of them have done something pretty serious and could have serious consequences over and above loosing their jobs but the others just seemed like a nice bonus of working for the deptment and if management allow it then would you realise it is gross misconduct?

I could be being really naieve here.

The things you mentioned (theft, tax evasion) are serious things. They aren't really "perks" of working somewhere. I think that it should be obvious to everyone who took part in them that they were serious offences. I'd agree with you if it was taking the odd piece of stationery home or something like that, but this sounds like serious stuff. It is also strange that everyone in the department has been doing stuff and that they have been doing different but equally serious stuff. It sounds like something has gone very wrong there.

yes, you are being naive here.

All food out of time (can't remember the correct phrase) get's binned and counted (counting discarded food is not the best job in the world) and then binned again.

What a waste - you'd think it could be picked up and used by a charity, or even used for pigswill or similar, rather than just binned.

If you've got a situation where there is entrenched wrong-doing, then anyone who has been trained in that environment is either complicit, or doesn't know the correct way to do things. So they would need to completely retrain any staff they kept in the kind of scenario you are describing, I think. Yes, probably easier to restart from scratch and ensure things are done right from here-on-in.

Perhaps some of the more junior staff may be partially exonerated after thorough investigation - they would probably be best redeployed elsewhere in the overall company.

Generally dishonesty is a sackable offence. Maybe some apples went bad because a lot more apples were bad.

I don't understand tax evasion - deliberately falsifying records to evade income tax maybe, - and will cause a substantial charge and penalties by HMRC going back for six years at least, as well as costing the company a fortune to investigate and dispute.

Which offences did you think were minor enough not to warrant dismissal?

That's the thing, it didn't seem like theft because the manager was OK with it. So it wasn't sneaky or underhand, it was done in the open and authorised (verbally) by the manager and the director.

It is being called theft now that an investigation has been conducted but those particular staff couldn't have known that it wasn't OK if they were told it was OK?

The tax evasion ones are serious but again had trust in their manager that things had been done legitimately.

I don't want to defend them too much because there could be a lot I don't know but on the face of it they were doing things they were allowed to do and when it's come to a head been thrown under the bus by those higher up.

It’s not guaranteed they will be sacked. They may get final written warnings as an alternative depending on what the company finds. Some may just get a verbal warnings but yes they can sack all of them if they have a case to

What a waste - you'd think it could be picked up and used by a charity, or even used for pigswill or similar, rather than just binned.

Trust me by the time it's thrown out it's not fit for human consumption. It was all put into a separate bin from other waste so quite possibly was sent for pigswill (or school dinners )

Of course you can sack an entire department. Yes it might cause operational difficulties - sack 10 people in the customer service team and you have to draft in cover from other departments and rely on temps while you recruit.

It is being called theft now that an investigation has been conducted but those particular staff couldn't have known that it wasn't OK if they were told it was OK?

I'm sorry but no that's just not an excuse. Staff are not children, they can't just say "Oh but my manager didn't mind"! As a pp pointed out people are expected to have their own moral compass and in fact I'd be very surprised if there weren't written guidelines on this given you say this is a large company. I know mine have loads about professional conduct, ethics, a whistleblowing policy and so on.

The fact that their managers were "ok" with it doesn't protect them, all it shows is there was a culture of wrongdoing in that department.

If it's tax evasion and theft they will have to sack all involved, surely. Otherwise those sacked could claim for unfair dismissal if others were allowed to stay.
Nobody is irreplaceable unless they are the only specialist in their field
Just a number like all the others.

I suppose they have had a good month to think through the next steps whilst conducting the investigation.

Its a horrible atmosphere at work at the moment and will be a sad day if thwy are all sacked. I suppose if one is then they all will be though. All or nothing.

If the the managers claimed not to know that their whole department was rotten with gross misconduct happening left, right and centre, and this had been going on for years, then as a senior manager I would want to know WHY they were so oblivious, and would sack them for being incompetent.

Exactly Birds. If they can't get them for gross misconduct they'll surely be sacked for gross incompetence! Mind you given they brought in an external company to investigate you'd have to imagine they're satisfied with the evidence they have no matter what statements these managers make.

I thought exactly the same. The management are surley going to be sacked regardless because the tax evasion could cost the company a lot of money, so why not just own up about the other stuff.

It stinks to be honest.

If course they knew, either they knew or are totally shit managers out of touch with their team. (they 100% did know though).

Did everyone else know what was going on? I'm surprised it's taken this long to get reported if people outside the department knew about these 'perks' and didn't get them themselves.

Yes they can and it's sometimes better as remaining staff can be very upset with the new management and hard to manage

The workers should get their union involved or consult acas. Surely the enquiry will judge each case and have an overview. They should be able to decide, in theory, what is fair and reasonable