Employee leaving work early and not meeting minimum contract hours

[Rustyfeet]

Hi all,
I wouldn't normally ask for advice on here but at this time of year all offices are closing!

We have an employee salaried to work a minimum of 40 hours a week. I went to do payroll for our weekly paid staff today and I added said employees hours up and seen that they are working 7 hours less a week.

I queried this and she point blank ignored this and was talking about something else in the message. She is supposed to be the manager of the place (hospitality) and sets up the rotas. I have now gone and collected all past rotas and she has done this for the last 3 weeks since moving from 0 hours to a salary. I worked with her to make the salary work and even agreed to pay a little more as she wants to apply for a mortgage as long as she worked the 40 hours minium.

Where do I stand legally regarding her pay? I have checked online but it all seems to be from an emplpyee point of view.

Tia

Are the 40 hours stated in her contract? What is your workplace policy on this?

If you can evidence the contracted hours and can evidence the actual worked hours then you can proportionately reduce pay and go through your disciplinary procedures on this.

Is it 40 hours with unpaid breaks on the top or is she taking an hours lunch each day within the 40 hours?

Why do you say salaried to work a minimum of 40 hours a week when it's hospitality? How often is it expected that someone work extra hours above the 40 for the same salary?

Disciplinary and fire her - she is stealing both time and wages.

Gross misconduct and inexcusable.

She needs to be sacked. End of.

Pay the hours she worked. If she feels that she has been short-paid then it might motivate her to stop ignoring your messages!
You can always correct things next payroll run.

Put your position / reasoning in writing so she can't say she didn't know.

Have you spoken to her about it?

Follow your disciplinary policy. Start with informal and make it clear she needs to work 40 hours and you will be monitoring.

If you don’t have a disciplinary policy use ACAS.

Is it possible that what she's rota'd is less than what she's actually working because she's covering or coming in early etc? But she should certainly be rota'd her 40 hours.

I'd start by checking she's aware of what it looks like and check if she has an explanation and go from there.

Seems odd for her to actually put the 33 hours in black and white. If she was intentionally going to sneak 7 unpaid hours a week off you then she'd surely make the rota look legit.

Which makes me think she's rota herself for what she thinks is correct. You need to have a conversation and see what the (recorded, rather than hidden) shortfall is for.

What does the contract say?

If it says 40 hours and she worked 33, I'd adjust her pay accordingly.

If no contract issued, then do that now and accept that the contract should have been shared to ensure clarity - the employer is legally required to provide a statement of particulars (contract).

Thank you all. 40 hours has to be worked. She's clear on this as there was a lot of to and throwing about it and then we fi ally came to an agreement. It states in her contract it is a 40 hour a week minimum.

I have cctv and I can see when she arrives and when she leaves. She had left a few times early before I have arrived and left younger team members alone. They have told her they told us she left early. We then get a huge paragraph long text 'explaining' why she left and how hard she works for the company. This is sent to us before we eve get a chance to ask her where she is!

Yes she writes down all the hours. Which, yes confused me. As she writes down everyone's lunch breaks too.

There are a few other things I'm not happy with that she doesn't do that's in her job description. But I wanted to give her a chance as she's young and was close to securing a mortgage..but at the moment I feel a bit of a mug and I don't feel so generous now!

I will take a look at ACAS. Thank you

Also I messaged her about it. He also didn't submit the staff hours as requested by the deadline for Xmas holidays as the Accountants closing. She's the only manager in our chain who wasn't able to get this in. So I highlighted that there will be no payslips this week. (There will be as I contacted everyone individually jnstead) and she just put a heart on my message. I followed it up with the accountant will charge me to have these corrected and her reply was. Ok perfect. How will this work for my payslip.... and ignored our messages about her hours. As she road herself as off until Friday. (The busiest week of our year!)

I know I need to maybe start paying more attention to rotas. But this is why we have managers! She messages me about 100 times a week and it takes up a lot of my time.

It doesn’t sound as if she’s not up to the job, I’d be taking advice on how to legally get rid of her.

@MaitlandGirl well yes I think this our only option. But how we go about it is the question.

I don't really want to pay with 4 weeks notice! But might not have a choice. I sent her her contract to sign and she still hasn't signed it. So that might go in my favour!

You need to get her/him in and tell her/him what needs to improve and set a time frame - say things have to improve significantly eg 'work the minimum contracted hours each week', submit staff working ti.e information on time etc etc

Just be aware, even though she was on '0' hours contract previously she may have continuous employment rights, depending on when s/he started.

@ByQuaintAzureWasp thank you. Is it possible to demote her? If given 4 weeks notice to assistant managed and adjust oay accordingly as she's not going to improve. She messages me at least 10 times a day for me to walk through things. She also manages to somehow pass work on to me. So it's actually making more work for me having her as a manager.

Is she on probation still? If not then you need to address this really promptly. This is basically misconduct, she's not working the hours or leaving early. You need to follow your policy which likely would be to hold a disciplinary meeting pronto and present her the evidence you've gathered on the hours and not following process on submitting hours.

This is unlikely to be a sackable offence but you could issue a final written warning. I'd then be following her hours etc closely and also following up on any process points. It will take active management from you

Is this a him or a her or two people? I am very confused.

@blueshoes it's a lady. I have referenced as she to her. Not that it makes a difference. It's one person

@Whyherewego thank you!

Also I messaged her about it. He also didn't submit the staff hours as requested by the deadline for Xmas holidays as the Accountants closing.

I see. I got confused by the 'He' in this statement. Then another poster started using her/him so I think I was not the only one who was thrown.

Thanks for clarifying.

My advice is to monitor and closely performance manage, document your steps and get her out asap, not demote her. If she is still on probation, strike while the iron is hot. If there is a problem, you don't want the bad egg sitting around in any way causing a toxic atmosphere in the office and demoralising others.

@blueshoes thank you

I suspect she only moved from 0 hours to salary to get the mortgage. Then she will quit and not tell the bank. I say that because she cannot even be bothered to hide her hours deficit.

To be fair to her, you should let her know she is at risk before she takes out the mortgage. Once you give her the pay slips to show the bank, she is going to take the piss from then on as it will be job done on her part. So get her out and keep extending that probation if you need to.

If there is a problem, you don't want the bad egg sitting around in any way causing a toxic atmosphere in the office and demoralising others.
I think that the fact that her own staff have dobbed her in speaks volumes. There is already bad feeling.

If she's paid a fixed salary and not per hour, technically you should pay her full salary (unless your contracts say otherwise)...but you need to start the formal disciplinary process immediately.

Speak to your HR and get her in for a meeting to discuss missing hours.

If she's been an employee for less than two years you can get rid of her straight away for any reason.

That's the thing. We are family run. We don't have an HR department. So.it falls to me.

This will be her 1st payslip on a salary. She says she needs 3. So it's a bit early to be taking the pics. Also found out she's taken a second job at a competitor and that's why she's rotad off on busy periods. Wish I put in the contract she couldn't work for another company in the same industry now.