Please help me with unfair disciplinary action

[Nezuko22]

Hi,

I have an appeal meeting on Monday against a disciplinary that was given to me last week. I have written dow a rebuttal because I'm quite an emotional person and I will be less likely to cry if I'm reading it off of a bit of paper.

The gross misconduct I've been accused of is false, and they have jumped straight to final written warning despite this being my first "offence".

The disciplinary was also sprung on me, there was no warning, no invite detailing the nature of the meeting, no chance to prepare my defence and no chance to bring a representative. I have been on the ACAS website and this appears to be unlawful. I also note that the appeals meeting is being conducted by the same manager who conducted the disciplinary. I was not offered the chance to appeal, I had to ask for it.

How would you play this? I truly believe this to be a personal vendetta agaisnt me and they are looking for a way to force me out of the company. I am going ot leave, but I am not going to tell them this until I have a job offer in my hand from somewhere else.

The emotional distress this has caused me has been unreal. My anxiety has been so bad I have spent most of the week shaking as I have to sit directly next to the manager who did the disciplinary. I had not eaten in 3 days and am at risk of my hair falling out due to stress related alopecia.

I'm going to call ACAS on Monday morning before the appeal for some extra advice but was wondering if any of you lovely ladies had some words of advice.

There is no HR department it’s a small company. There is often jokes that HR is a roll of toilet paper and any complaints should be written on there so that the director can his wipe his ass with them.

I would really appreciate your professional advice.

When will you have been there 2 years?

Have they given you a copy of their disciplinary policy?

Sounds like they don't know what they are doing to be honest.

@CantHoldMeDown Employee relations then. I get the case file - here is the allegation, here is the letter inviting the colleague to the hearing, here is the statement from colleague A, here is the statement from colleague B, here are the accounts/phone calls/evidence etc.

Who should be doing the investigation in your experience?

And your intellectually superior advice is to…..?

Hi, Thankyou for that. I’m about to head out but when I get back and I’ve finished typing up my notes I can pm you then?

Nope. They can dismiss you on any grounds they like with less than 2 years service.

By all means appeal it but if they want you out then they want you out. At least make sure they pay you the required notice period as per your contract.

Be careful dm anyone, you don't know who they are, if they are genuine , qualified to give advice or work for the company.

Ah right apologies op - I missed the sanction. Yes the appeal can’t increase the sanction but I’d still seriously consider if this company is for you as the culture sounds terrible.

I’ve done a couple of appeals - they are held to ensure that the disciplinary process has been followed appropriately, it doesn’t sound like it has in this case. The hearing manager should be a different person.

Sorry OP, Having not been employed for two years you have very little legal protection. Unless you can prove discrimination against a protected characteristic such as race, gender, religion etc.

Ah right. Probably just semantics then. I work for a big global bank. We have HR and ER. ER are the ones doing the interviews and pulling the case notes together - they are fab tbh.

Id be the disciplinary chair in your organisation I think. When I get the case notes I have a couple of weeks to read/digest/work out questioning and make further enquiries. Then I conduct the hearing, reach a decision and apply any sanctions.

Interesting to hear how it works in different places, thanks ☺️

Hi,

I am a senior employee relations specialist with a large UK firm and have 30 years' experience - just to put into context what I am going to tell you.

If you have under 2 years' service (less any notice period), you are unable to claim unfair dismissal. Whilst there is an ACAS code of practice, it is just a code of practice and doesn't necessarily have to be applied to those with under 2 years' service (although best practice would be that you apply it to everyone which is probably what ACAS is referring to).

However, you are able to claim discrimination from day 1 so this is really your only recourse in this situation - in your case, it's sex discrimination. I would hammer home the fact that males have been treated less harshly and that, as a female, a prejudgement was made without proper consideration e.g. no opportunity to prepare your case, allegations not clear etc. You must insist that they respond on this point - what males (can be anonymous) have received warnings in similar situations and why was your situation deemed to be more serious? What process did they follow with these males?

This is the only way to go with this. At this point, you may not wish to go back but you might be able to agree a settlement agreement with them - a sum of money to be paid to you in lieu of you taking them to court.

Get advice from ACAS about this angle.

Good luck.

There's a legal section in mumsnet which might be better.
What's your notice period? That's likely to be the max compensation you would get.

You mentioned them refusing you to work at home and also removing commission - contractually can they do that? It's an unusual punishment.

CAB and law centres also have useful stuff online, but likely to have been covered by ACAS.

You say company trying to get rid of you? Why do you they want to do that?

Oh yes. Insubordination is a thing, although I am not really sure how a grown adult can be "insubordinate". It's all very paternal and patriarchal.

You've had some good advice here OP - definitely fight them, but sadly the lack of two years' service gives them the upper hand. It isn't fair and I really hope Labour do away with it, or at least reduce it back to a year or six months. An employer should not be able to dismiss someone on a whim and destroy their livelihood just because you've not worked there for very long.

I work in HR and you've had some good advice here (and some terrible advice!)

It does sound like they don't know what they are doing....BUT that won't necessarily help you here unfortunately. Certainly gross misconduct for defying a direct order sounds like very strange wording to me and an overreaction. Ultimately though if you have less than 2 years service and they're confident they can prove they're not dismissing you due to any protected characteristics (sex, age, disability, race etc) then it doesn't look good I'm afraid.

More detail about the allegation and their investigation and evidence would be needed but for example, the only cases off gross misconduct I have dealt with were for theft (by far the most common), once for violence and once for an employee viewing pornography at work. I.e. the most serious transgressions.