I did not follow policy at work. What will happen??

[cosmobrown]

I resigned from my job In September, to leave at the end of this month.
I have recently been caught out not declaring a conflict of interest.
Background info : I work part time for this company, and part time freelance doing the same job in the same are. (I know, it's an unusual situation).
A company did not want to deal with my employer anymore, so asked if I would do a very small amount of freelance work for them. I said yes, but didn't declare it to my employer. None of my other freelance work has been declared either.
It is my last actual day on Monday, and I have to go and see the Big Boss.
What is the worse they can do to me??
Thank you
CosmoBrown

No terms and conditions? What is in this contract?

Since your contract with them is vague use that to your advantage.

If your boss mentions it you say you looked at the contract after the company approached you and there was nothing in it to state that you couldn't be sourced by them on a freelance basis.

Maybe it's a goodbye presentation and a thank you for 20 years service with them?

This entirely depends on their written policies among other things. Your individual contract doesn't necessarily have to include this scenario if there are formal company policies that clearly apply to you that you've broken and your contract holds you responsible for following company policies. If that's the case they could potentially terminate you with cause on Monday, which might affect any holiday pay would otherwise get.

"They were going to lose the client anyways" usually isn't a defense for this sort of thing unless it was going to become impossible for the company to provide service to the client or the company had fired the client. Even then, you can't use that to justify not disclosing to your employer if that's what company policy requires.

Theoretically they could possibly pursue you for lost revenue if the cost & hassle were worth it. This would seem a highly unlikely course unless there's a considerable amount of money involved here.

And yet they have. The person in question poached a client who’s been the patron of the business for 10 years. The company sued her for the estimated loss of income based on the average spent per year plus estimated revenue for the next 10 years based on the fact that the client would have been expected to continue using our services. It’s a pretty standard contract for the industry and the former employee was made an example of in this case.
A quick search online comes back with many other similar cases where poaching clause was enforced once contract ended

I have handed in my equipment, which was when my immediate manager told me that I was going to have to speak with Big Boss on Monday about this.

Is an FCA, or other, regulated role?

But where they successful? Post-employment restrictive covenants are generally considered unenforceable in the UK except under very specific circumstances. Companies can't just stop former employees competing against them for business as that is restraint of trade.

In OPs case as it occured during her employment then the course of action would be to sack her on grounds of gross misconduct. A rather moot point as she is leaving. She does not appear to have any post-employment restrictive covenants in her contract as far as she is aware.

Yes they were successful as the 6 months clause was considered reasonable by the court and the company presented a good argument (and had money behind them for competent lawyers). Yes, some employees were also fired over this but in this particular case, the contract was enforced post-employment.
Had the employee waited 6 months, there wouldn’t have been a problem. I myself had to inform former clients that they needed to wait 6 months when they contacted me after I transitioned to freelancing and my former employer was aware and did not have an issue with it.
When I was writing my original comment, I was not privy to the OP’s contract and commented based on my experience with what would be a standard clause for my industry.

Your attitude isn't very good. Is it.

If it’s any sort of formal meeting stop the meeting and get your union rep in before the meeting continues if you’re not in the union you can take in a trusted co worker in.

chances are they will play it down and wish you good luck in the future.

Oh. Very wise, they didn't give you a chance to delete the evidence.

I presume this is your last ever job or you'd have had more concerns about blowing up the reference from the place you worked for 20 years.

@Viviennemary but I've not got to see the big boss of my 20 year job, so my attitude tops OPs!

From the other side of the fence as an employer… we have had this happen and called a similar meeting. However it was more to ensure a “positive” farewell, cementing a positive relationship going forwards and preventing further lost clients…along the lines of “keeping your enemies closer”. Sounds like you are clearly good at your job!

Sorry I quoted the wrong post. I meant to quote OP's post where she says 'I thought I had got away with it.' Which implies she knew she was doing something wrong.

Based upon what exactly? Did you see OP’s update?

The worst they can do is fire you but you’ve resigned so I wouldn’t worry too much 🤷‍♀️

Ah no worries @Viviennemary

I'd go in then plead ignorance, especially as your contract is a bit vague.

If they get shitty just apologise a bit more and leave that hanging in the air. Be nice. It goes a long way

'Oh dear, I'm so terribly sorry. I hadn't really thought about that as a conflict. They were so desperate for me to do the work and I was just trying to help and be professional. I've been here so long I hadn't even thought to look at my contract. In fact I'm not even sure where my copy is. Apologies again".

Or something.

Some people recently left the small company work for and did some things against their restricted covenants. The company just sent them a shitty letter and couldn't do much else.

The OP asked for the worst case scenario and I gave her one.

Does your contract require you to comply with a Staff Handbook and that Handbook contains rules about conf,its of interest etc?

If it's a niche industry where every e knows each other, I would be adult and go to the Monday meeting. You don't want to be badmouthed round the market

Can you update us on Monday OP? I am invested now! I am sure it will be fine given what you said about your contract - -hope you're not panicking reading all these scary scenarios people are outlining!

Yes but you could only sue based on loss of business if OP had contractually agreed not to work separately for her employer’s former clients (here, there are no contractual restrictions). If this were not the case, everyone could sue their competitors for loss of business eg Coca Cola could sue Pepsi whenever one of their customers bought a can of Pepsi rather than Coke!

Also sounds like the money OP has made is small fry so would be unlikely to be worth the company’s time and money to sue even if there had been such a restriction.

The main risk here is reputational among potential future employers but perhaps OP freelances for herself now and therefore doesn’t care.

Honestly, I'd sack it off.

"Oh dear, I seem to have picked up a horrid tummy bug over the weekend! I'm afraid I'm not going to make it in today."

They'll know you're bullshitting - obviously. But there's nothing they can do about it.

Even though you are leaving, they could still go through the disciplinary procedure (though they would probably expect you not to engage with it as you won’t be there!) and if found guilty of gross misconduct they could ‘sack’ you which could mean they could claim back any pension contributions they have made over your career. Whether they would bother who knows though….