can I get fired for this? how bad is it?

[Snowowls]

I work in a company where I enter data manually into a system. I do about 8000-10000 entries per annum (it's about usage of a certain product which is linked to invoice creation). I was informed last week that in the last few months, 3 entries were incorrectly entered (though the have been corrected after the customer complained), all invoices had been corrected. I have been told that is is an unacceptable standard of working and I am having an urgent meeting with my line manager about it next Monday to discuss my poor performance. I have been in my job for 5 years but I worry I will let go. There were innocent mistakes. Not sure how they happened, just human nature. It's the first time in 5 years such a mistake has been flagged to but I am absolutely terrified as I have now a (disciplinary?) meeting about it. Any advice on how to respond? I am not in a union.

The advice I gave wasn’t about improving HERSELF. her rates of accuracy are amazing
its about her, as the expert in her role, coming up with a suggestion on how to fool proof. Point being whoever they employed in that task would make errors, so the systems and ways of working need changing. That may not be on her job description, but it sure will help her get the message across to the idiots that expect 100% accuracy that it’s not possible if they’re reliant on humans. It also makes it a bloody sight harder for them to uphold a disciplinary or dismissal of she can show she’s trying to avoid errors by suggesting improvements- frankly they’d be looking at her winning a court cae3 if it came to it with that level of accuracy and proof she’d made suggestion to follow proof ways of working.
Put more briefly- making sure she covers that part of her arse too

They are being unreasonable, it's ridiculous that there is no check you can do yourself.

I would come from the angle that the purpose of the next department to X check is entirely because there is always the risk of human error otherwise they wouldn't perform it.

I would also ask about the accuracy rates of everyone else in the company, how does yours compare?

With your sort of excellent data entry I would contact job agencies and see what better paid work there is out there.

This is utterly insane, you are not a robot.

Even if you cannot manage to get help from Unite or ACAS in time for the meeting, make sure you are accompanied by a clued-up friend.

What would the consequences of your mistake be to the client and/or the employer? The effects of your mistake would be a big factor in deciding whether it could be deemed a gross misconduct issue.

To add to those posters talking about DSE assessments and free eye tests, it is also a legal requirement for employers to manage stress by including it in health and safety risk assessments (and if there hasn't been one done, that's a black mark against them). Asking for 100% perfect performance all day every day without building in a checking stage on data entry is an unrealistic expectation and their heavy handed comms so far on picking up this tiny % of error are both unreasonable stressors coming from the employer: this would definitely also play well for the OP if it ever came to tribunal.

If the target is zero, then a secondary check is not good enough, the business needs to have a process where each figure is entered twice independently and then compared, and any mismatches rejected. With the associated resource cost.

I would have expected a quality control process to be in place with such a stringent zero-tolerance rate. Such as a second reviewer or spot checks. I think the company ABU! Your error rate is so incredibly tiny!
Wishing you all the best, @Snowowls

The accepted rate of error can't be zero.
I've worked in audit for many years. Any manual process has a defect rate.
What controls do they have to identify errors other than customers complaining?

As long as they have humans doing jobs, there will be errors. It's the nature of the beast. A few errors out of 10,000 sounds like a phenomenal level of accuracy to me! Of course the "target" is 0 errors. But targets aren't always realistic.

You'll probably just get a talking to. If it was a sackable offence they'd have just done it, they wouldn't have you continuing in the job if your performance is unacceptable.

It's a pain in the arse for the company to have to deal with complaints when things are wrong. That's why they get worked up about it. Obviously their clients want and need zero errors. But things happen, that's life.

There were no consequences as it was picked up by someone much further down the line and a correction was made.

If it would not be picked to, it would be an incorrect invoice which then would get corrected too unless the customer does not notice the mistake and pays. In that case, we would issue a credit note. Nobody would die.

It’s obviously NOT gross misconduct!

I think the suggestion was looking to see if there is a way to protect yourself moving forwards, e.g. any eyesight changes this year, if peri/menopausal are you sleeping poorly or suffering from brain fog, etc.

OP in the 5 years you have worked there, have any of your colleagues made a mistake? If do what was their outcome?

Surely this is human error? If the target for mistakes is 0% then there should be some form of quality checking? Or reconciliation to pick up mistakes?

Exactly. Expecting perfection is ridiculous.

id be looking for another job in this situation, because I couldn’t work for someone so patently ignorant.

I know it’s hard when you work in what sounds like a toxic workplace, but don’t resign. I’d imagine it’s hugely unlikely you’d be fired and without it being gross misconduct (which unless there’s a huge back story it doesn’t sound like it) or getting warnings if you were it would likely be unfair.

Any decent workplace would be framing this first of all as a welfare chat.

it may be worth looking for a new job with a better company as this lot sound awful.

@Snowowls I've worked in a similar job for different companies over the years. I've made way more mistakes than that, they were usually spotted before sending out to the customer but if they were missed, customers just phoned up and told us if there was an error. No one was threatened with the sack, just accepted as human error with the amount of invoices that were processed every day. Seems like a massive over reaction by your employers, as you say, no one died!

Was it the same misplaced comma on all of the three mistakes? Somebody spotted one of the incorrect invoices but not the other two?

Are there no detective or preventative controls on your manual entries? I.e. there is an expectation that you do a manual process perfectly every time, with no controls to support, and it goes straight out to the customer? Because if it's a big blue chip company I would think they should have a better system of internal control over your process. If there is a risk department they wouldn't be happy with 'be perfect' as an internal control over invoicing accuracy.

OP sometimes managers or people who write these emails can lose the run of themselves when it comes to company jargon and declaring how ‘serious’ something is. I personally don’t see that they would fire you, I think it will be a verbal warning meeting to make you aware of the errors. I do think a 0% error rate is completely unrealistic and I don’t know anyone at my company who has a 0% error rate.

Worrying between now and the meeting time will change nothing, so you must put it out of your head 🤍. Go into the meeting and say you appreciate the issue being brought to your attention, you understand your role and it’s importance, and you are committed to getting back to work and continuing your high level of productivity and accuracy.

I would re-jig my finances to get back into the union - is this possible?

They are being dicks. There is an accepted percentage of error in every task, because no human can be expected to work at 0% error rate. For data entry it can be 30% or as low as 1%, depending on the type of data.

If its critical that the data is entered correctly, the usual method is to have the task performed twice, then use software to compare the two files, and have a human check the differences and correct the errors.

Suggest that to your employers. It means the task takes twice as long so you can check your own work, or costs twice as much as they will need two people to complete the same task; but thats their problem.

It has been very stressful with a high workload but 3 incorrect entries out of 10k.

What was your workload last year, and the year before? Is the volume increasing over time so your productivity is increasing but the error target remains the same? It might be worth looking at your volumetric data over the past few years because if you can point to a "I was hired to process 5000 entries a year with 0 error rate, but I am now under pressure to do 10000 in the same timeframe, this is an unreasonable view to take"

I’m amazed that they have a ZERO target for mistakes 😮 You do 8-10k entries per year, that’s mental!! You’re a human being, not a robot. If anything, their processes need to be improved to reduce staff stress levels. I’d say that a 1% tolerance would be fair before a PIP/warning becomes a worry.

That aside, loads of good advice on this thread which I won’t repeat. Good luck 🤞

Three mistakes over 5 years though, so more like 3/50000 not 3/9000.

Edit to add that I would be surprised if either were gross misconduct. Ridiculous to have zero error rate for manual entry. If I were a customer and complained, I wouldn't expect the person who made the mistake to be fired because of it! I'd just want the error correcting.

I work in clinical research where data mistakes can have serious consequences. So there is a system in place to catch those mistakes: the data managers will set up the data entry system so that any out of target data will be flagged, then once the data are entered they are doubly checked, once by a monitor who will open patients medical files and manually check every data entered, then by a data manager who will flag any incoherent data.
It is not possible to have a target of 0 mistake and no system in place to ensure that. Surgical wards and the aviation sector use checklists and double-checking. I'm afraid they are scapegoating you for their poor management.