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?

I'm sorry to hear he's had this experience. It sounded like he may have been a little overconfident and it led to some slip ups. Unfortunately in this line of work, getting things like this wrong is a serious business and I can see why he wasn't progressed.

The people saying he's had a lucky escape don't work in FS or they would understand this is not an abnormally harsh employer.

It would be a good idea for me to sit him down and show him this thread, or some of it

Terrible idea. Just summarise the salient points. No need to humiliate him, some people have been unnecessarily harsh.

Welcome to the dollhouse. The adult world of work is tough and ruthless. Which is why young people delay it by going to university or doing some kind of training while building up life and workplace experience.

Are there any areas he might like to do training in?

Actually they are required to provide, on day one, the written statement of main particulars and nothing else. If they don't, it's moot... there is no legal claim unless it is added to another valid legal claim, and there isn't one.

'Welcome to the Layer Cake, son...'

Actually, you could show him that film to make him see how things could be worse!
There's probably another Mumsnet thread about people having a terrible time in their first job, so it might be good to show him that too instead.
And leave this job off his CV?
Of course, there's Liz Truss's short stint as PM. Ignored warnings, crashed the economy. Failed her probationary period. It's not as bad as that, though as she's on £120K a year for the rest of her life, not as good either!

Oh dear, OP. It's pants for him - but you lost me at "are they obliged to send us his contract, if requested?"

There isn't any "us". Your son is an adult. His contract is nothing to do with you, and I am surprised you even started a thread about someone else's work probIem. I have one DC the same age as yours, and a couple very slightly older - and in that situation, I'd be telling any of them that it was their own silly fault and they needed to be a bit less arrogant and a bit more compliant with whatever rules their boss imposes on them (even if they hate said rules and can't see the point of them). I'd probably secretly agree with them, but if you take a job, you have to accept the bits that seem silly and pointless. That's life.

You never know what goes on behind the scenes. Maybe someone got in trouble for hiring too many new employees or something like that.

They’ll be something better out there for him. He’s done brilliantly to have got such a good job and he’ll do so again.

You wouldn't expect a bank to let someone else access your account if they got your security details wrong, would you?

In a time when your DS should have been on his best behaviour and trying to impress, he's been sloppy and shown he can't be bothered, because "I'll be fine when it's the real thing". No wonder the company sacked him; they were absolutely right to.

Perhaps this type of career is not for your SS, as it really shouldn't have been difficult to get right.

I'm sorry but I agree with everyone else. I'd let him go for this too. The company haven't done anything shifty it's wrong - he's not the right fit for them because he's sloppy, despite having been corrected and given feedback.

I’ve never worked anywhere where I didn’t get a copy of the contract I signed even if just by email. Is he sure they didn’t send anything by email?

You’re just hearing from him about it. It’s hard to properly understand from the employers pov like that but they obviously thought he wasn’t suited. I do think it’s harsh if he wasn’t fully informed or warned that if he didn’t improve he’d be let go.

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 sounds cocky and I’m not surprised they got rid of him.

To the posters saying he had a lucky escape and to name and shame etc, I presume you’d just laugh it off then if someone let someone into your bank account because they gave the wrong information when impersonating you? Because that’s what it amounts to. Someone could give an incorrect date of birth for instance,and if some cocky little shit put it in wrong and laughed it off because he figured he’d get it right next time then your account could easily be cleaned out. But hey the company are the ones in the wrong.

OP your DS clearly isn’t up to the job and he needs to grow up if he wants to be taken seriously in the workplace.

Afraid I agree with most PPs. I think if he generally performed well on the calls and made what would be a breach in a real call ONCE, got feedback, and improved, then letting him go would be harsh. I imagine that's the kind of scenario their policy of it 'not being a breach' refers to. But it's a different matter entirely if he made the mistake, got pulled up on it and then showed no improvement whatsoever in the further calls.

Whether or not it says in his contract that it isn't a proper breach in the first month, I don't think it matters. I think they're perfectly reasonable to say he isn't a good fit if he's making a breach on every single training call and isn't showing signs of improvement after getting feedback. Especially as the stakes are so high, they couldn't possibly let him handle calls with actual customers after his performance in training.

Not meaning to sound harsh on your DS, he's very young. I expect this will teach him that you have to apply yourself really carefully to any points for improvement you're given during training and he'll do well in his next role.

It would still be classed as a breach though. If it was a real call and not training and an employee failed to comply with data protection then the company has to report it as a breach.
This would be the case even if the customer wasn’t negatively impacted and regardless of whether the employee found breaching security has been there 1 day or 30 years.

Company’s can’t get away with breaching data protection just because their staff are in their first month. That’s just not how it works.
Same as staff can’t get away with not complying with data protection in their first month.

I'm struck by how nervous and unsure of themselves so many competent young women are when they first start work, and how many young men think they know it all. And it isn't just young men. Those of us who are female will have looked through Person Specs and Requirements and identified all the things that disqualify us from applying for a job. We will all know men who'd confidently apply for the job despite not having half the basic requirements covered.

OP, you'll do your son a favour if you make it clear to him that being confident isn't enough and that being over-confident is something that trips a lot of people up. He needs to be competent.

It really doesn’t matter what his contract states, there is no employment protection within the first two years other than protection from discrimination.

I have worked in financial services for thirty years. Your son doesn’t sound suited to it, he was in a test and he failed to check security details properly three times! Come on. I wouldn’t waste any more time attempting to train somebody who sounds fundamentally unsuited. You mention he is “affable” perhaps he would be better suited to a sales type role than financial services.

I work in a similar industry. I have had new, young employees be frankly terrible and end their probation as it is a risk to the company. Some act like children, it's unbelievable. And when I end their probations fairly, their mums come and complain and can't believe how they have been treated.

Basically - I wouldn't believe everything your son has said. There is no need for a company to train someone up just to get rid of them for no reason, it's too expensive for a start.

My response to the other poster was as to whether an employer can be pursued for breach of contract in the first two years of employment, not as to the merits of the case or whether the employer was unreasonable/reasonable to dismiss re the errors.

The only breach in contract that the employer might be at risk of making here is to not provide proper notice. They need to do that. Nothing else is relevant here as the statement of written particulars in not going to include a list of work related scenarios in which they can and cannot terminate the contract.

It's because they can't take the risk. He isn't the right fit so no point wasting his and their time

Awful but he's had a lucky escape if that's how they treat people. Corporate bullshit is absolutely brutal and not for the faint hearted as its like this.

It's not brutal. He's made 3 potentially massive mistakes in the first week.

I don't agree it's 'corporate bullshit' at all - it's security details so about customer safety. Sorry op but I don't think you should be fixating on the 'but breaches don't count in the first month' - if he had a breach in each of 3 training role plays and came away thinking he had done well he simply didn't 'get it'. He's not suited to the job.

Probably not. He probably blames the company, and mummy agrees he's perfect and the company is at fault.

@Liorae if you take the time to read my replies you'll see I'm being quite objective about all this.

"Mummy" has already said she's going to summarise appropriate advice on this thread for her son, so I don't think this comment is fair.