Son's awful experience in first week of job

[ArmyofMunn]

Sorry this is long but I wanted to get it all down!

My 18DS started his first full time job last week. He has A Levels but is not degree educated and was taken on as one of four, the other three being in their mid-to late twenties and two of them with degrees. It was with a financial services company and paid £4K more per year plus commission than another job he’d also been offered, so he was very pleased.

He spent last week and the first two days of this week completing training for the job and he's been coming home each day saying how much he loves it - the training, the people, the office, the role etc. The training has been intense, involving two powerpoint presentations per day to prove he understood the training, but in which he said he kept coming second from top.

This week, following the training, he’s had to do three mock calls to a fake customer (his line manager) and he apparently made three ‘breaches’ in total, all involving not noticing that the customer had used some wrong letters during the security checks of emails and addresses etc. He thought he’d done well though as he was confident and affable and just thought next time he’d get the breaches right. He was shocked therefore to be taken into a room after his final call by two managers and told that because of the breaches he hasn’t passed his probation week and would have to leave and couldn’t appeal!

He’s completely shocked. The company didn’t tell him that his first week was probationary and he also remembers reading clearly that breaches by employees in their first month should not be regarded as breaches. He unfortunately read this on their own system so he can’t access it now, and his employer has his contract, so he can’t check that over either.

I just think this is an absolutely terrible way to treat an employee and my son is struggling to understand how the breaches he made were so serious as to warrant being asked to leave. He did ask to opt out of their employee life insurance and pension scheme, so I’m wondering if that just didn’t go down well with them!

Does anyone on here have experience of this type of thing? Are companies allowed to treat people like this these days?

Well, first of all he needs to be given a copy of the contract he has signed.

Was it cold call sales? Moat of them have a reputation for being a revolving door and not treating staff the best.

If it’s a financial customer services type environment, then security checks are essential. This was the same policy when I worked in a bank call centre 15 years ago.

Also surely he's be relying on a computer system to tell him whether the letters/numbers were correct? He wouldn't have access to the customer's full password to check it manually.

Yes, they can - for the first two years of employment, an employer can get rid of anyone for any reason as long as it’s not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. It’s unfortunate, but it does also sound like your son did something pretty seriously wrong and was quite blasé about it.

Sorry, pressed post too quickly. Three breaches on three calls would have been enough to fail probation then too.

Sounds remarkably iffy to me. Probation is for learning the job, not a 'one strike and you're out, no appeal.' Also, a probation of a week and no copy of his contract? chalk this one down to experience and be grateful for a lucky escape.

@TeaStory Not if they have breached their own employment contract they can't.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/basic-rights-and-contracts/contracts-of-employment/

Have you looked at the company reviews online? There maybe many stories like this for that company. I think maybe someone like indeed or other type website have company reviews.
May help him feel better.

Well this is a good learning experience

1. make sure you have a copy of your contract
2. understand your terms of employment including probation and how performance will be managed
3. especially in regulated industries, but in any where customer data is accessed, accuracy is important - being confident and affable isn't enough.

Opting out of a company pension scheme won't get you sacked unless the company is a scam.

He's learning the job. If he made serious mistakes then he needs more or better training.

Sounds like your ds has had a life lesson and a lucky escape.

How would you like to tackle this? your ds can contact ACAS for further information and assistance?

Would your ds like to return to working there?

It doesn’t sound like a nice place to work anyway. He’s better off out of it but he can still learn a lesson of being a bit more diligent. Good luck to him, it’s hard being young and starting in the workplace.

He made 3 careless mistakes in 3 role plays all involving customer details. In the real world this translates to potential client ID and anti- money laundering breaches which carry heavy personal and company penalties.

Hard as it is to hear, I am not surprised that the company is not taking his employment further. Most trainees would be doing their utmost to check the tiniest detail in training scenarios and it sounds very much like he has an attitude of "Oh well I'll get it right next time". After 3 failures the company clearly think otherwise.

I've had to let staff go for this reason myself.

Was he given the feedback about the first two breaches before he completed the third call? Is so, this could be why, if they've fed something back and the same type of issue happened after the first two rounds of feedback. However, I will say that this kind of thing is usually expected in training within the first week, they don't seem very determined to support staff so he's better off out of it

he must request the contract from them to see what it says

company sound terrible anyway so he’s had a lucky escape

i don’t think him opting out of the pension and life insurance would matter as it actually save the company money by not paying into it surely?

on another note though I’d encourage him to opt into the workplace pension scheme in his next job!

id give Acas a call just to find out what they say about it, and then request the contract from the company - then I’d just suggest he moves on from it and applies for more jobs.

good luck

It isn’t that he’s had breaches (he hasn’t, they weren’t real customer so no breach), it’s that in training he’s shown himself to be careless and lacking attention to detail. You cannot get customer security wrong in FS.

Well he had no come back, less than 2 years service.
Put it down to experience and move on. Not for him. Sounds like a fast paced environment where they want people to hit the ground running. If he cannot apply practically what he has been trained, he is not for them.
The right thing will come along.

He isn’t up to the job. It’s really as simple as that. Teach him to take it on the chin, learn from it and move on.

It sounds like he just doesn't pay attention to details thoroughly, that's not something you can learn and wouldn't improve with time unfortunately. It was probably the wrong job for his skills.

My guess is that if he cant get a 'fundemental' correct whilst he is on his 100% A game in training, they probably deem him to be too much of a risk going forward. Remember training isnt just a time investment for your son, it is a financial, time and labour expense for the employer. Your son got it wrong 3 times.

I also guess there may be more than these 3 mistakes but that would be enough.

As long as your son takes the learning from it then it can be a positive experience he will learn from. I wouldnt waste a second on trying to fight back. He is a young man and he needs to cut those strings

Financial Services are very tightly regulated, and he made an error during each of the three calls OP, which is really unfortunate. Was he given feedback between each call but then repeated the mistake?

It won't be anything to do with not joining the pension scheme. It will just be the errors.

I agree with @Tessasanderson and others saying similar. And OP, n the service of cutting the strings, I think you need to let go the ‘my poor, ill-treated son’ narrative. The fact that you say the other three trainees had degrees and were in their mid- to late twenties make it sound as if you think your son was victimised by his employers for his youth and lack of post-A level education, when there’s no indication this was the case.

FS and three breaches? He had three chances and didn't get it. Time to move on to the next one.

It sounds as if he was over-confident. He made the same mistake on three successive occasions ( presume the problem was pointed out to him the first and second times) and seems not to have learned, or understood why that's a problem.

Put this down to a useful learning experience.