How bad would you say this is in terms of misconduct?

[greatbighill]

I'm in shop floor retail work, it seems that some of the team members have been ignoring social distancing between each other (staying closer than 1m and not wearing masks for prolonged periods, not sanitising surfaces regularly). Also they've been taking unauthorised breaks (on top of their normal breaks) frequently using personal phones while on shop floor. Productivity from this little group is already low, and the reasons are obvious now. There is CCTV footage of all of these behaviours over the course of at least three days, not all the footage has been checked yet so there may be more issues. Its breaking the covid health and safety rules and also a lot of rules that are specified in our handbook.
What would this kind of behaviour be classed as in terms of misconduct and what kind of action is possible?

Are management aware

Your staff handbook should detail the kinds of misdemeanors in order of gravity : misconduct ; serious misconduct; gross misconduct; and the penalties applicable to each category. Failing that, try the ACAS website for guidance.

I would suggest that it is misconduct and a breach of the rules depending on how local the rules have been around social distancing And how nice the employer Is I would expect final informal warning before Escalation to disciplinary procedures

The alternative would be straight to disciplinary, formal warning and clear standards expected going forward, further failure could lead to dismissal

It depends how needed they are. If they aren’t experienced or helpful otherwise they’ll likely get fired, especially if they’ve been there under two years.
If they are useful to the company then they’ll get a warning.

The additional breaks is basically theft.

Checking the handbook, it would either be serious or gross misconduct to breach the health and safety rules, depending on how you see it.

Maybe have a quiet word with them to let them know they are being watched before getting management in. Give them a second chance.

HR person here.

Different employers take different views about what constitutes minor vs serious misconduct. As a pp said there may be examples in the disciplinary policy but the lists won't be exhaustive.

The action the employer takes is also likely to be determined by whether any action has been taken for previous similar incidents (amongst this group or others) and maybe by the individuals' length of service.

So in summary it's impossible to say how seriously an employer would take this type of conduct or what they would do about it.

It doesn't sound fair at all but there will always be people who take the piss. If you are not employed in a supervisory capacity there's nothing you can or should do and just have to suck it up unfortunately.

For the failure to social distance I mean.
The rest of it is all against the rules in the handbook and recently we've been reminded that we should be making sure we are sticking closely to those rules (must have been an inkling of this sort of behaviour)

The rest of us are all glad its been exposed as we suspected this sort of thing but of course it only goes on when we aren't around. There's always been a lot of them making out that they're more busy with customers when there's no evidence that's true.

Thanks @Peaceandharmoneeee so it could go any way, depending on how management see it?

The main issue is the unauthorised breaks - that’s something that could lead to their dismissal

The phone use depends on the management, some (most) might not care

The COVID “breaches” are likely to be a non issue.

Under 2 years of service they can be fired for any reason (aside from protected characteristics), so if management wanted to they could fire them regardless of what the handbook says

@frappuccinofan you really think that about covid breeches? Our work has been really on it with the precautions and invested loads in it. I think they will be mightily pissed off, especially as they have been breaking policy in front of customers. It doesn't reflect well on the business does it?

@greatbighill

Thanks *@Peaceandharmoneeee* so it could go any way, depending on how management see it?

In my experience, yes!

It depends on your management’s discretion as it isn’t clear cut at the moment, we have only been dealing with COVID for a relatively short period so it’s difficult to decide what counts as gross misconduct or not. There’s a spectrum too, eg if you’re supposed to sanitise door handles after every single customer, not sanitising key touch points at all would be worse than doing it infrequently.

It’s not always possible for colleagues to keep 1m away from each other. Therefore keeping 1m distance away at other times is a bit redundant, as they have already been in close contact.

Not wearing masks, especially in front of customers, is concerning but you can’t be sure if they have an exemption, eg mental health concerns, that may lead to them removing the mask. It sounds like a stretch but it could be an easy defence IMO.

Management have been super clear about all this. They take it very seriously. The business was sent a letter from the council recently saying that it should gear up all precautions because of very high local rates. The group have been consistently maintaining 1m plus and wearing masks all the time when any management are around to see them!