To wonder if every workplace has that person who is unsackable?

[Whistleblow2024]

Because honestly one of DCs workmates seems unsackable and I'm curious if this is normal.

They are constantly late, they don't care, they make regular inappropriate comments to others they work with but also in front of clients and at training sessions.
They ignore management frequently, which has resulted in incidents which could have become much larger.
They have left things in an area with clients that shouldn't have been there which again could have been more serious.

They also did something pretty major after being not to which again could have been very serious

Trying to be intentionally vague for obvious reasons but before I worked from home I remember people like this too!

So do you have a cheeky fuck at your work and what can they get away with

Yep.

Often on her phone.
chats all day long
Has 2 lunches and various breaks due to eye strain.
low standard of work that we all have to double check and sort out.

I have no clue!

We had a few people who trained with me for a job who just weren't good enough and therefore weren't given contracts to continue. Except for one, because the manager liked her, so she got moved from job to job within the company for about a year until they decided she really was untrainable so put her in HR 😂😂😂 It still makes me laugh now 10 years later.

I think companies do not want the hassle of going down the PIP/disciplinary/sacking route and would rather wait for the person leave/move or resign. Managers in my old company would prefer to move these people on within the organisation so they become someone else's problem. The trouble with that is when someone finally does take action the employee puts in a grievance because 'no one else in my X years at the company had a problem with my performance '.

I used to work for an HR Director. He told me of a case in a previous company where there was an employee who was much as you describe. There was an incident where she was doing something she had been expressly told not to do and the MD fell over her and broke his arm in two places. He told my boss that enough was enough, she was useless anyway and to get rid of her.

My boss replied that she was a militant black lesbian single mother who had converted to Islam so how much publicity did the MD want? She kept her job.

Yes, it does happen in most places. In my experience, it’s usually someone who is very well aware that they have the company, and its HR department, over a barrel because they tick numerous boxes under the Equality Act.

The company could sack them, but they are well aware that doing so would leave them facing expensive litigation, large compensation bills and the likelihood of damaging publicity.

Yip constantly skived, always on phone, constantly goes to the toilet so she can be on her phone. Carries her phone about the work space(phones should be in lockers) late often, phones in sick alot.

"But she's amazing with the clients! "

This is exactly it. I have had colleagues that my managers have been desperate to get rid of but the sacking is such a slippery slope these days. I think if they sack, the person sacked can so easily come back with unfair dismissal. They can't sack without X amount of warnings etc.

I have had useless colleagues, one of which my managers actively encouraged us to file grievances against.

I've also had useless managers who frequently ignore gross misconduct so they don't have to do any hard work! So you know.

But yes, I do feel I have unsackable colleagues. My manager has said "I wish she'd hand her notice in". Multiple times about a colleague when I can think of 1000 reasons why she could be given warnings and then dismissed. But they don't want to deal with the paperwork

Yes I had one. Rude. Would kick off if asked to work. Treated work like a social occasion Sat off ordering takeaway delivery. Finally she fell foul after being cocky to the new manager one time too many. Good riddance to her.

Yes. Civil service... there is always one mad bag lady and one weird man. They do nothing. I don't know how the dispersal system works, but in every office- there's the bag lady and the creep.

I worked with one person who did very little work. She seemed to spend most of her time browsing the net and booking holidays. She worked alongside a very conscientious member of staff who did half her work for her. Lots of staff complained about her but nothing happened and eventually she retired. In the same organisation I worked for a manager for a short period of time who was constantly moved within the organisation and was frequently promoted just at the point where she had caused the maximum amount of chaos and alienated all her staff. Eventually after a member of staff raised a formal complaint supported by others on the team she decided to leave.

Yes I used to be middle management in NHS. I would do performance management on dangerous/incompetent/lazy staff and get accused of bullying and I would have to stop, and let them continue being dangerous/incompetent/lazy. Every. Single. Time.

I work in HR in the civil service. So far I’ve got rid of 3 of our 4 unsackables in little over 2 years. The 4th may well be gone before the end of the year.

It is doable, but it takes a huge amount of management time.

Yep, I'm CS too and it seems to be nigh on impossible to get rid of the dead (and piss-taking!) wood.

Yup! One lady had a full blown tantrum in our office after being asked to do something that literally every other colleague was also being asked to do. I've never seen anything like it. Fully shouting, stamping her feet etc. A manager took her into another room where she continued yelling and we could all hear it. It was absolutely bonkers. Aside from that meltdown, she was regularly rude to other colleagues and clients and had a reputation for being really bloody awkward. I think managers and HR teams are just too frightened of potential consequences to sacking someone.

And yet I’m terrified every day of being sacked.

They seem to sack people left right and centre where I work.

Yep. A compulsive liar who has been 'off sick' for nearly 3 months now; but not signed off for the thee months with a long-term illness which would be understandable, it's 3 days of food poisoning, then a week of covid, then a bad back, then another food poisoning, then another food poisoning (Jesus Christ, take a food hygiene course!), then something else....

Prior to this there's been several relatives drop dead requiring compassionate leave, his flight home from holiday was cancelled so that was 2 days he couldn't come to work...

On the rare occasion he does turn up he's late, rude, disengaged, crap at the job, spends more time outside on his phone than at his desk, talks at length about how he doesn't need the job or the money, but curiously refuses to fuck off.

I had a colleague who was off sick the day before she went on holiday. Every single time.

Same colleague had made her job ridiculously convoluted. Essentially tasks were duplicated for no good reason. She had done this to make tasks till the time available to ensure she was never asked to do anything else.

She was able to keep this going until retirement.

We have someone that is off sick more than she is at work. She boasts about being due some sick leave when she's not been off for a while. And in the 20+ years she's worked there has worked one Christmas (it's normal operations for us at Christmas and new year - emergency services). Is always going on holiday when she's off sick, posting pictures of nights out on social media etc.

Her sister is a senior manager so that probably has something to do with why she gets away with it.

My husband used to be a school caretaker at a large secondary school. There was him and 2 other full time caretakers,doing different shifts.
One caretaker got away with everything - off sick for weeks, ringing in sick literally at the last minute ( which meant one of the others had to do a double shift), always having time off for appointments ( even though he didn't start work until 1.00pm),constantly late and not just by a few minutes, was lazy, talked to the cleaners like shit,spoke to delivery people like shit, and hated the kids and when he was actually at work the standard of his work was appalling!
8 years later he's still there.....my husband always said thought that this other caretaker had some inside financial info on another member of staff and that's why he kept his job....

Yep. Colleague with a diagnosed personality disorder. She's complete drama and absolutely vile to the people she works with, but because it never affects patient care, management can't do anything about her. We all just have to put up with being cornered and verbally attacked, or her storming off the ward and going home.

My company are so terrified of unfair or constructive dismissal claims that chancers get away with absolute murder. They have had two constructive dismissal cases in the last couple of years which has caused the fear but they really need to grow a backbone. Decent staff leave when wankers get to do as they please.

@devildeepbluesea omg you must be a magician! How have you managed that? (Struggling with a performance case in CS and getting nowhere because HR won’t grow a backbone…)

"My boss replied that she was a militant black lesbian single mother who had converted to Islam so how much publicity did the MD want? She kept her job."

You missed out she was also disabled - as in the old joke.

Yes. They are called senior managers here and manage to get away with doing fuck all and aren’t held accountable for anything.

Also had one a few years ago who was eventually sacked after going off sick for months and then working a different job. Fraud basically. This was after previously exposing himself to colleagues twice, bullying colleagues, sexually harassing trainees he was supposed to be mentoring and letting some trainees perform clinical skills they weren’t trained or permitted to do, all of which should have been sackable offences.