Sacking employee for one off error?

[14thDoctor]

How easy is it to do this? Employee has made a one off error that has cost business a huge amount of money. Otherwise their work is consistently at a good quality.

They have apologised but pointed out when the error was made they were new to the specific area of business and therefore having their work checked by another employee. It was not picked up on by the senior person checking.

They do however have the technical knowledge where it would be expected they would not make such a huge programming mistake. (Obviously so does the senior).

Surely the senior person should have spotted this error??

This is morally wrong whether you can do it or not.
The employee was in training in a new area, and the checker should have checked their work.
The error is not wholly their fault, it is more the fault of the checker.

Process failure

All employees are human and will therefore make mistakes

When it comes to software , all humans tend to make the same mistakes

You need a better testing process / environment

I assume OP is the employee who made the error.

How long have you been with that employer?

This

Why do you want to sack this employee? If anything I'd be sacking the senior employee.

Senior staff members fault and responsibility. Not sure where you stand on unfair dismissal though.

Employees are not robots. Careful that the employee doesn’t go off sick with stress.

Sounds a bit like an excuse to get rid of someone to be honest. If they’re consistently good at their usual job why on earth would you want to sack them? Makes no sense.

Why does anyone need to be sacked if they are usually a good employee? It wont get the money back. There needs to be a better process in place if there are large sums of money at stake.

Do they have more or less than 2 years' service?

The buck definitely stops with the senior employee.

Senior people get paid more to take responsibility. If this person didn't pick up on the error (presumably because they trusted the competence of the staff member and so didn't check properly) then that is in on the senior member of staff. It's literally why they are paid more.

Does the employee have less than 2 years service? - very easy

Does the employee have more than 2 years service? - employer must follow a disciplinary process that as a minimum is compliant with ACAS guidance.

Disciplinary measures can deal with an employee's conduct or capability/performance and must be fair, legal, follow proper process.

Disciplinary and grievance procedures | Acas

The fact a senior person was in place to check the work meant acceptance that the employee might make mistakes because they were new to role - therefore the fault lies either with the senior employee or with the process (would need more detail to say which).

They can't sack someone for making a mistake, however costly, especially if they were new to that particular area of work and it should have been checked by someone else. Although if they haven't worked there long, they could just be let go before the end of their probation period.

They can't be sacked for gross misconduct because it wasn't deliberate, and they were not trained in that specific role.

I don’t think anyone should lose their job over one error either.
One crime, yes, but not one mistake.

Are you the same poster who has posted before? An accountant now on mat leave who made an error in a client's tax calculation?

IANAL but gross misconduct doesn’t need to be deliberate, does it? Serious negligence can certainly be gross misconduct (not saying that's the case here)

This sounds more like corporate negligence than personal negligence as the error was done during the company’s employee training process on a new business area which had a senior checker in place to quality control work product.

No, you had someone checking their because you knew they were not 100%

I am not the employer or employee. My DH is and has been called in for a disciplinary meeting. I was trying to be vague but realised it wasn’t that helpful. He seems to think it will be fine because the seniors should have checked. I am much more worried but didn’t want to put that worry on him. He has been there for 3 years.

Even then negligence would be hard to prove for a mere process and quality control failure.

Thank you Baba. That has greatly put my mind at some rest. However my worry is DH absolutely should have known better. He had already completed significant training in the area, and his degree specialised in it as well. Although he was new to doing it for the company he wasn’t new to the knowledge. Does that make any difference?

Any programmer of any level is capable of making a mistake that could cause huge issues. Any remotely sensible company does code reviews and has other people signing off on every bit of code.

If something like this got through any reviews and somehow was made live, then it's the companies processes at fault rather than your husband's.

If he's usually good at his job then there really shouldn't be any major repercussions for your husband because of this.

He should have his TU rep with him at the disciplinary interview.