Partner fired right before I started maternity leave :(

[melibu1984]

My partner lost his job a few weeks ago, literally a couple of weeks before I started maternity leave. He was fired for gross misconduct. i am not sure of exactly what happened; all he has said is that he made a decision that went against protocol (he works in IT). They must have really liked him before that, though, as they gave him 3 months pay in lieu of notice, even though he had only been with them since November.

The dismissal has completely knocked his confidence, and he is spending most of his time playing on his Xbox instead of looking for another job! He gets angry and worried about money and our unborn son all the time (I am 40 weeks pregnant as of today), as well as worrying about his parents, who are both ill.

I really don't know how to get him to think more positively, as I think this would really help him with the job search.

I'm very worried to, but I am trying to hide it. If he doesn't find another job in the next few months, I will need to end my maternity leave early and go back to work :(

I'm also wondering if anyone has any advice on dealing with being fired for gross misconduct. What should he be telling recruiters? I think it might also be a good idea for him to try temping work in the meantime, as they are generally less fussy about previously employment issues :/

Any advice would really be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

You don't know the whole story. Sorry, but no one gets fired for gross misconduct and has a 3 month pay off.

He needs to be honest with you.

If someone is dismissed for gross misconduct then by definition they are NOT entitled to notice pay. Not that it matters in this case because the OP's boyfriend can't claim unfair dismissal, but the essence of gross misconduct is that the employer is arguing the employee's conduct is so extreme that it constitutes a breach of contract and therefore no notice is payable.

Employers have lost unfair dismissal claims for gross misconduct when they have paid notice pay because they've undermined their own argument.

Well they do I mean but not without there being a back story! Not because they liked him (if they did he would still work there!)

I don't believe he is telling you the truth. He needs to get a grip and lay his cards on the table. It will all come out in the end anyway. My niece was fired for gross misconduct a few months ago. She was told to leave immediately and received no money. She faffed about for ages giving ridiculous stories as to why she was fired. Turns out she was caught shagging a guy from the office on the desk! You need to be strong and get the truth from him.

Turns out she was caught shagging a guy from the office on the desk!

You can get fired for that?

He should be looking for day rate jobs to keep ticking over - lots around for an it contractor. I'd advise if he has previous good experience to say he has been caring for an ill parent for the past seven months and leave it at that to explain the hole in his cv.

I can't help with the employment issue, I'm afraid.

Whatever is the truth of what happened, try to focus on what's happening day to day for you and your baby. You don't get those first few months back so try not to let this overshadow a special time and huge life change. (I'm assuming this is your first).
DP unexpectedly lost his job 2 weeks before DS was born. It seemed awful at the time but we managed. As a result, he has a bond with DS that would not have been the same if he was working.

DP didn't get JSA because my statutory maternity pay put us over the limit. We got Housing Benefit, Council Tax benefit and Tax Credits when I was on statutory maternity pay. We ended up paying most of it back gradually when I returned to work. It got us through a hard time though. I managed to stay off 9 months and could have stayed off longer if something else hadn't happened. Our standard of living wasn't nearly the same in that time but that was ok.

What helped me most was sitting down and looking at where we spent money and doing a comprehensive budget. We cut back where we could - froze the gym membership and pension contributions - and being off work creates savings in itself eg transport, food etc.

Babies are cheap to run for the first year if you're not paying childcare.

You can't get him off the Xbox and into a job - he has to do that for himself. I do think you should tell him how worried you are and what you need from him. He needs to step up to the plate here. You and the baby are top priority.

If you work for a big organisation, you might access to an Employee Assistance Programme, which can give useful advice.

It's normal to worry - don't take on his problems, though.

Good luck.

Yes you can get fired for shagging! Good job I never got caught (back in the day obviously) x

Thank you to everyone who has posted helpful comments. I will look at his rights and speak to him about how to deal with the recruiters, and mention the contracting and temporary work.

He has a very good CV, so he gets a call once a week about a job, but no interviews yet. The part where he is going to fall down is when he needs to tell them why he left his last job. I'm not sure about telling him to lie, but will consider this.

The house and nursery have been sorted for weeks, the only thing left to do is build the pram. My main concern is that he gets stuck into looking for a job properly, I just wanted advice on motivating him. I just want him to be employed so that he doesn't stress about being unemployed and doesn't feel worthless.

Regarding maternity pay
My maternity pay package is basically the minimum you can get. I will get 90% of pay for the first 6 weeks, then I'm on SMP after that. I will be getting SMP from mid July. Just before I left, I had my annual review for the year ending May 2016. and so I am expecting a bonus for that end of July, but I don't know what it will be.

Unfortunately, we don't have much to cut back on, the only non essential item is the Sky TV (roughly £32) a month, and phone contracts, but we are in the middle of those. I would not get rid of the broadband cos that is so important for job hunting. The biggest expenses are rent and council tax (1,040 and 120.00 per month).

I didn't think I could apply for any benefits, but will look into that.

I would be throwing the Xbox away and giving him a huge metaphorical kick up the arse. Not easy when you are pregnant I know

Have a look into Tax Credits first as you can apply for them in advance and update them as your income changes. So you might apply now but not actually qualify until you're on SMP. I don't know your financial circumstances or the current eligibility criteria so but it's worth a look at that first, and then housing benefit and council tax benefit. The paperwork is a pain but hey, your DP has time on his hands.
Ignore Unexpected's advice about chucking the Xbox out - sell it!

I think people are unnecessarily jumping to conclusions.

For people with less than two years service it's very common not to follow a disciplinary procedure and just to pay their contractual notice instead, particularly if it's not clear cut gross misconduct. Frankly it's usually not worth the potential litigation and management time invested in defending a wrongful dismissal claim and paying notice extinguishes any possibility of a Tribunal claim.

(I'm an employment lawyer, btw.)

I hope you manage to sort your situation out soon.

Thank you, I didn't know that about employment laws.

Thanks for the tip on the tax credits as well :)

I'm sorry it was such a statement. Most people are replying on the legalities of the whole thing. I was thinking of the moralitis.

Gross Misconduct isn't generally something you accidentally fall into. Something serious has gone wrong.

Now had he come to you with a really clear explanation and I am really very sorry you might have had some sympathy. (I wouldn't because ive seen where that can end) However he hasn't he's given you some half baked "explanation" about protocol, which really doesn't tell you anything about what he did and why it was wrong.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if you did challenge him for a fuller explanation. I suspect he would get cross and turn it round so it was your fault you were asking. Cap it off he really isn't bothering to sort his life out. He's playing xbox. You could throw the xbox out but now you know he is the type of person who can metaphorically speaking play on this xbox while Rome burned.can you rely on someone like that?

He knows can get away with it because you are vulnerable right now. At 40 week pregnant I wouldn't be dealing with it either. But when you are ready have a good thing whether this is really someone you can trust to do the right thing and rely on. Some people do stuff that sabotages their future. Don't let him take you and your children with you

Dh lost his job just before I got pregnant and still hadn't found a job by the time she was born. I had to go back to work a lot earlier than planned and leave him looking after dd. He settled into being a SAHD a bit too well and didn't get a job until she was 2yo.

He needs to pull his finger out job hunting now. The longer he leaves it the less chance of getting a job.

My DH lost his job about 4 months after my DD was born.. I did keeping in touch days and went back early. It's awful but we got there.

Hi there just to say that he is not necessarily lying here.
This can happened.
My friend had three months notice in her company. She got a job offer by a different one. She told her boss who hated her anyway. Boss really pissed off and said it was breach of contract because that company is a competitor.
Massive argument whether these two companies were actually competitors, legal terms, review of fine print of contract.
At the end my friend was told fine, we wont sue, you can go now or stay for two months to complete your notice.

We will pay you.

Because I thinks they both had a commitment of notice but boss didnt want her there anymore

If this is a case of breaking protocol it can happen

What missy said

The key to turning his confidence back around may lie in what he actually did to get fired. Employment Law is strict and if he was fired for gross misconduct, he will have been told exactly what he had done wrong as part of the disciplinary process. It had to be something serious.

He needs to face up to what that was and come to terms with it. For example, did he make a genuine mistake?

I'd get to the bottom of what happened so he can move forwards with his job hunting.

Good luck.

Similar happened just a few weeks before my second child was born - not dismissal, but "redundancy" with 3 months pay to sweeten the blow and keep him quiet. We were lucky as I had a decent maternity package, but it was nonetheless a scary time. Yep, and lost confidence and Xbox playing featured, too. There were good bits, too though, as we spent quite a lot of time as family, until he found a new job around 5 months later.
It turned out alright for us, hope it will for you too.

In IT it's far from unusual for people who have been fired, made redundant or who have simply resigned to effectively be walked off the premises immediately and be paid for their notice period. If you've got access to a lot of systems then your employer often decides it's simply too risky to leave you with that access when you've already got a foot out of the door.

That makes sense, he had access to their whole infrastructure. He said a situation arose, his boss wasn't there, and he made a bad decision. He is a very honest person (to the point he can easily offend people) so I believe he's telling me the truth, but perhaps doesn't want to go into more detail because the situation upsets him so much.

I'm not throwing out his Xbox, he spent a year saving up for it, and then only bought if after Game has a really good deal on.

I'm a very laid back person so I'm not demanding explanations from him, (he calls me his cheerleader) I just wanted advice on motivating him to apply for more work and to think more positively. If you don't want to give that kind of advice, then please don't bother posting to this thread, thank you.

You still need to establish very clearly whether they will give him a reference. If they will he can say anything he likes about reason for leaving, eg family illness, extended holiday anything at all.

Motivating him to think more positively and apply for more work would be a lot easier if you understood exactly what had happened in his last job. At the moment, you don't even know what his previous employers will say if approached for a reference. You don't understand what kind of "bad" decision he made (illegal, ill judged, financially irresponsible etc) in order to advise how he could deal with it in a job hunting or future interview situation. If the decision was really a difference of protocol, then his attempt to find another job will be a whole lot different and his answer to why he left his last job much more comprehensive and easier to spin than if he handed the company secrets over to a competitor.

Think he also needs to be clear as to whether or not it was gross misconduct (and what this entailed- they will have been explicit in their reason to him) OR whether it was a mutually agreed departure (hence the 3 months pay) in which case he doesn't need to declare it- I don't understand why he has been heard openly talking about dismissal for gross misconduct prior to a realistic lead on a job coming up.

Absolutely agree with pp regarding clarifying whether previous employer will provide a reference.