handling a dismissal fairly and compassionately

[DevonQueen]

i am as i am worried about a situation involving my dh and an employee of his.

i cannot give details, but he and his business partner are currently having to follow dismissal proceeding against someone who has has made some serious errors and has major issues with competency.

she is a relatively new employee.

today she has announced that she is pregnant.

the issues don't disappear, obviously, just because she is pregnant, but because of this, the case is especially sensitive, for obvious reasons.

does anyone have any ideas about how one might proceed in this very difficult situation, so that she has appropriate emotional support? eg offering for her dh to attend meetings with her

dh is a very caring person but this poor girl is sadly just not able to do the job

i know that dh will follow the letter of the law re procedures, but you can't legislate for the emotional impact of these things, can you?

i am prepared to be flamed for this thread, but if we didnt care, we wouldnt be agonising over this

If she is new, how new? Just bearing in mind that you can dismiss for any reason (except discriminatory reasons of course) before 1 years service (2 years for very recently employed as it changed earlier this year I believe)

I think allowing her DH to accompany to disciplinary meeting would be unwise, I would stick to the colleague or union rep as usually allowed. I can feel how much you mean well with it, IYKWIM. Make sure DH is keeping very accurate records to avoid any claims it is sex discrimination due to the pregnancy.

Can DH access some formal HR support? (I'm not an HR bod)

more than 1 year. less than 2. it is a time sensitive issue, iykwim, due to her length of service. dh is aware of the law. thanks

she was failing at her job form the start. they nearly started proceedings earlier but felt sorry for her with her forthcoming wedding. now this...
thanks for advice

Had they started procedures before her announcement? Because if not I suspect they could be in a very tricky situation. Has she been under performance management proceedings for some time?

dont know specifics but there were issues that pre dated pregnancy for sure. am sure dh wouldve documented it properly.

I think the onus will be on DH to prove the dismissal is not pregnancy related, hopefully there is a specific disciplinary procedure in place which he has followed properly. Unfortunately, I have read about times where not following the procedure(to be kind) has counted against the employer as they had not followed their own procedure (even though it was with good intentions)

If they have been employed over a year then he will need to show just cause and that he has offered appropriate retraining etc which has not been successful. Could turn out rather tricky if she argues that the pregnancy was the trigger to escalate to dismissal

If I was the employee I would assume that if nothing had been started before announcing I was pregnant, that pregnancy WAS the trigger and sue the heck out of your hubby/business partner.

I can only presume pregnancy is not the trigger and she has already been given a couple of formal written warnings laying out the procedure and the time scale which is now going to be followed - if so, then all he can do is be extremely formal, tell her privately and maybe arrange a taxi home, whatever at the end of the meeting.

I'm assuming if your DH is following "dismissal proceedings" against her and she has more an a year's service, she's been through several disciplinaries already and is on a final warning?

Once an employment relationship has deteriorated to that extent, I think there's a limit to how "compassionately" you can take the next step of dismissal, and I don't think allowing a whole team of DHs, mums, dads, grannies etc will avoid your DH looking heartless dismissing someone who's just announced she's pregnant. I would agree that allowing anyone other than a colleague or TU rep would be a very bad idea anyway.

If she's teetering on the edge of dismissal after a protracted performance management process with warnings etc, probably the most compassionate thing to do would have been to offer her the opportunity to take a compromise agreement and leave without a dismissal staining her record and the stress of a process. There's certainly an argument to say if compassion was the aim, doing that as soon as it became clear where it was all heading would have been the kindest thing to do. The problem is doing it now she's announced her pregnancy will be much more expensive.

Even assuming she's on a final warning and has presumably been told that failure to improve may result in dismissal, actually going ahead with dismissing her after her pregnancy announcement will be incredibly tricky and I can't advise you strongly enough to ensure your DH is taking proper professional advice from someone very experienced in these things, getting letters professionally drafted, etc

Please do as flowery suggests and get a solicitor involved asap, some business insurance covers for legal advice and some banks also have advice linked to bis banks accounts thats free 24/7.

Just out of interest how pg is staff member, have you had MatB1 or evidence of pg?

hi. solicitor is involved. she is just over twelve weeks pg.

there is a catalogue of minor but significant errors over the last year. all meetings with her raising the issues are logged.

4 weeks ago she left a large sum of cash in an unsafe place . this was the last straw. they were just about to deliver marching orders when she announced pregnancy.

thanks for advice

'Meetings raising issues' aren't enough to put your DH in a position to dismiss for poor performance, unless the recent issue is gross misconduct, but if there is a solicitor advising him hopefully he/she has flagged that up. It would need to have been formal warnings using the disciplinary procedure.

flowery, he has taken lots of legal advice, as has his partner. so am sure they have followed the law to the letter. honestly. re the 'meetings raising issues'... that is my wording not his. so prob much more 'formal' than i have suggested.

this thread is more about how to make the deed be done as sensitively as poss