Help with husband on stage 2 capability

[candypanda283]

My husband has been doing his job for 7 years, he has always been good at it. He works in an office and updates customers files on the computer. Recently, a manager has really been picking at his work and checking everything he does in lots of detail, more than the usual checks. She has focused on his error rate, he was originally making 100 errors in 6 weeks. He was told he needed to cut it down to 20 in 12 weeks and was put on stage 1 capability. He has now cut it down to 25 in 12 weeks but has been noticed that the system is not working consistently and sometimes some of the changes he is making to files are not saving despite him clicking save. These are flagging as errors. He has pointed this out to his supervisor and manager but they are dismissive and say "I don't know why that has happened, it isn't happening to anyone else". Hes only managed to cut his errors down so much by rechecking files and saving them multiple times but this doesnt always work.
What can he do now? In his capability notes they haven't noted that he brought this up so now he is going to have to say that they aren't accurate.
They are completely dismissing that there is anything wrong with the system. He is not in a union as his contract says he isnt allowed (although i have insisted he is).
Im worried as im on unpaid mat leave and we have 3 babies...

I forgot to say, he is now on stage 2 capability as they have said it isnt enough of an improvement and the target was 20.

Are you in the UK? If so, contract thing about union must be unenforceable (maybe illegal?)

Yes in the UK, I said that! But will a union let him join now that he already has an issue?

He could join Unison, it's about £6 a month & they will help him even though he's already got issues; my friend was made redundant unfairly & they made sure everything was done correctly.

Google their contact details.

The manager and HR should be putting strategies in place to help him, rather than trying to catch him out, surely? They need to support him.

If he's not in a union, can he ask to take a work colleague in for these meetings, so that things are recorded and witnessed by another party?

How is he coping? He must feel under a lot of stress, which won't be helping. This manager sounds like a bully.

I can't see where you say you are in the UK? Yes, try and join now.

Is there any kind of IT support? He could start logging it each time it won't save. Start keeping a dated log each time it occurs.

Write a letter to the employer/start a grievance about lack of support with system errors.

Even 20 errors a month seems a huge amount?! Does he have an underlying issue duch as dyslexia etc that could be contributing to his mistakes?

candy I can't tell from your posts how many of the errors were due to the No-Save problem (was it one or 2, or a frequent problem?) against errors he made that he wasn't aware of until they told him the total errors in the 12 week review.

How is he doing, compared to colleagues? Is he being targeted unfairly or are there several other people undergoing the same level of scrutiny? Have other people had the No-Save system problem too, who can back him up?

He should keep meticulous records from now on, of every time he gets the problem and maybe call a supervisor over to his computer when it's happening (plus document the dates and times).

Take screen shots of attempts to change a record and then the same one where the save hasn't saved. Keep the date/time box in the very bottom of the screen. Email the screen shot to line manager copy to HR and IT Helpdesk on EVERY occasion this happens.

Make a subject access request for performance stats across his team or with comparable roles. Acknowledge you expect names to be redacted so it only reads employee 1, employee 2 etc. This should show his performance compared to others and put in to context if others are having this problem.

It might be hard, and embarrassing, but open up the debate to the rest of the team. What are they doing differently to him? If nothing, this exposes management for what they are doing. If others don't have the same issue, they may have a workaround he was never trained on etc.

Although 20 error a month seems high, 1 error per day approx if you are a data entry person doing a (guesstimate?) 6 hour shift doesnt seem too awful.

And what is the nature of the errors? If some are typos/spelling mistakes that's a different proposition to factual / numerical error, those are far more serious and yes 20 of those are serious.

And she's gone...