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Calling Flowerybeanbag, re HR issue.

10 replies

Oblomov · 18/01/2008 21:16

Flowery, I was wondering if you can give advice re dh. His employer treats him like dirt and he wants to quit. He hasn't been there a year. I saw another thread you are on, that says he basically doesn't have any rights.
Can you get back tome,or CAT me, so that I could seek your HR Guru advice.
Many thanks Oblomov.

OP posts:
flowerybeanbag · 18/01/2008 22:04

Hiya, do you want to email me the sorry tale on flowery dot beanbag at ntlworld dot com?

Oblomov · 20/01/2008 14:06

I will tomorrow when dh is at work.
Thanks you Flowery.

OP posts:
flowerybeanbag · 20/01/2008 14:12

no probs

Oblomov · 21/01/2008 17:48

Flowery dh called in sick today. I will e-mail you tomorrow , from work, with all details, mind you, I think your thread the other day, re the fact that an employee has little rights, if not completed a year, answers most of my questions.

OP posts:
flowerybeanbag · 21/01/2008 17:58

Maybe, but do email me anyway, see what we can do.

look forward to hearing from you tomorrow

Oblomov · 21/01/2008 18:53

Flowery, maybe its easier if I just tell you now, while I have the chance (whilst my cake falls apart - see other thread!!)

Right.
Dh = Operations manager.
Company he works for is really pants.
There is loads I could tell you, but;
He wants to quit and I keep begging him to stay, to keep being able to pay our mortgage and keep his employment record continuous.

He worked for a very famous co, for 20 years that finally went bust. Then he worked for a small family firm that were doing dodgy deals with huge IT firm and it got out and co went bust. His last job, small family firm , were racist and wanted him to manage his staff their way, by shouting & swearing. He quit. I was cross because I knew he was unhappy but I didn't know how unhappy he was.
It took nearly 5 months for him to get another job. This was very stressful and affected our finances very badly.

Being an Ops manager is very niche. He doesn't do the food storage. He does the general,logitics, production, for small firm.
And he keeps working for nigh on family business's that have the HR knowledge of a gnat. They treat their staff badly. They would never get away with such arcaic? ways of doing things at my firm, which is part of a multi million pound group. But this seems to be the type of company that employ a ops manager like him.

I know he is a very good manager. His people skills are superb. And prvious MD's , owners of the compnay, and all his staff - both up and down, have commented that he is the best manager they have ever seen.

Soon after starting in April last year, he started negotiations to up his salry by 8k, plus pension. But meetings were just not kept. And then they ssid that they were still looking into pesnion. Then they said that they just couldn't afford it. At interview agreed a 5k bonus at Christmas, once objectives had been agreed, ie we assumed in the first month or so. But they kept saying it was too early for them to decide what his objectives were. He offered his own objectives, but they were not agreed.
At christmas, every employee was given £350. Even the 2 employees, who had really mucked up and been given disciplinarieds by dh9 see in abit). Dh thinks that they value him the same as those 2 'morons'. £350 is a bit differnt ot 5k.

The crunch is :
The lost one of their biggest contracts. They had been trying to get one for 4 years and then lost it becasue they did not follow basic ISO checks. Dh as only there a month. He went to his boss and said I don't understand this, why, what shall I do. He told him just to 'push it through'. The part was dodgy and did not comply with ISO 9001 etc etc.
All shit hit the fan.
They tried to blame dh, but he washed his hands of it and said, I asked my superior.

They gave him a disciplinary. There was a warning on a sheet of paper, not even headed. It didn't even have a place on it for both him and his manager to sign it. He had himself given two to the 2 guys who had done a major mistake re all of this - which he had done properly - headed, signed, dated etc.
He said he would not accept it. And they said, well we are putting it in your file anyway.
He should have instisted that they retracted it, or else he would not return.
But, I persuaded him to go back on the fri(last day prior to christmas) and that we could think about it over christmas.

They talk to him like dirt and ask him to do menial tasks, not worthy of a manger of 20 years. But nothing that you could actually complain about or make a tribunal out of.
One of the shareholdaers, (who used to be head of Manchester police or similar) was bought in and he runs things now. Dh's boss has been demoted to 'chasing sales' and the old MD is out on the road, trying to compensate for their complacent dealings re the lost contract.He overheard new MD saying, they have nowhere else to go.
He treats them like shit becasue he knows that they do not have another job.

I work in accounts. I could get 5 interviews tomorrow. That is just the way accounts is. But with dh it takes along time.
I keep asking him to stay and he hates it. He has lost repsect, becaus I made go back, the next day.

I am starting to feel like some money grabbing bich that only cares if the mortgage is paid. But all my friends in the past , said that now that he has a wife an child, he should not quit until he has another job.
But he started looking seriuoaly in Oct. But the market is naff over Dec- Feb. I could be asking him to stay for another few months, based on past experience of how long it takes to get his kind of job.
Then my friend said that she too, would have told them to shove it. And that no one should treat him like that.
Which is true.
How/why am I forcing him to go where they treat him like dirt, just for the sake of money?
Would value your advice.

OP posts:
flowerybeanbag · 22/01/2008 10:17

Oblomov I've had a read of your post. There are loads of comments I could make about the individual incidents you mention - some are worse than others, some considered individually would be minorly irritating in the scheme of things, but the real problem is it's just not a nice place to work, bottom line, once you add up lots of the things you mention and combine that with the daily general unpleasantness that your DH is experiencing.

There seems to be lots of general messing him about, and politics as well, which is not fair but common, particularly in organisations this size.

In terms of his rights, they are very limited indeed at this stage, as you have gathered. Had he been there longer this long term undermining and bad treatment could add up to bullying, breach of duty of trust, could be constructive dismissal, all that. But he's only been there a short time, so at the moment none of that applies.

Having said that, April is not actually that far away. But the question then comes, once he has more rights, would he actually want to go through everything that making some kind of claim would entail. Possibly not.

Most of what I've said so far you already know I think. The basic question is are you right to try and get him to stay in a place where he is so miserable.

Arguments for staying are financial obviously, plus the relative importance, particularly given the short time he was in his last job, of getting a significant amount of time in one job under his belt.

Arguments for leaving are his happiness and the stress staying would bring, the stress it's causing you as a family. You mentioned him being out of work last year and the financial problems causing you stress as well though. It sounds as though he is not likely to get a good reference from there anyway which limits the benefits in staying.

If I'm honest, I think if my DH was that miserable, I would probably say that if he wanted to leave I would support that decision. But only you know how much difference the money would make, and how stressful the search for work would be.

You say your DH works in a niche market. Niche or not, there will be skills he uses and experience he has that will be transferable. Has he considered talking to a recruitment consultant or career counsellor to explore the possibility? If he ends up working for companies like this, a bit more of a long term change strategy, even if it means a drop in income, might be the best way to proceed, and probably what I would advise.

I hope that helps a bit, do come back if you want to chat some more, on here or offline.

flowerybeanbag · 22/01/2008 13:05

Also, just to add something I say a lot.

Rather than try and work out what action you could take against the employer in the event of a nasty situation at work, instead work out what end result you want to achieve, what outcome do you want? Then work back and try and figure out the best way to achieve it. Identify any obstacles standing in your way and work out how to overcome them.

Sometimes taking action against someone will be the answer, but sometimes not. There is usually a sense of frustration, anger and injustice but acting from those feelings isn't always the best way to go. Sometimes trying to take a step back and look at the long term picture is better.

I don't know if that helps you and your DH work out what's the best thing to do, but worth having a go at thinking along those lines if you can.

Oblomov · 22/01/2008 13:25

Thank you for your post Flowery.
I will take on board what you have said and will give it alot of thought.

I do want him to go to a career counsellor. I suggested this a year ago. I don't think he was that keen. I need to find a really good one.
I have been to 3. All free. 2 were totally rubbish. The third, at Bristol Uni, was the most fab. She made me think about things, from a totally different perspective. To me that is the equivalent of proper counselling. She helped me alot. I need to find a 'her', for dh.

I can't stand the way these small companies treat dh. He is worth so much more.
You are right, we need to look at the bigger picture/long term goals and work back.

OP posts:
Oblomov · 22/01/2008 13:33

I have already apologised for making him go back. Told him that I don't want him to go back. He would bop someone on the nose if they even said a bad thing to me !!
I told him to stay off sick, for all this week. They only pay stat sick pay, but we don't care.
He has an interview on Friday.

OP posts:
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