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.

What does "an entry" comprise?

Your 9000-10000 entries a year is roughly 36-40 per day.....

Does your job description/contract specify anything about performance targets for this part of your job?

Yes, that's just the sort of discriminatory question they'll ask the OP. That, or are you on your monthlies.

just another way of women getting discriminated against in the workplace

0.0033% is a vanishingly small error margin.

It sounds like yours is one of the jobs going to be taken by AI

if they really are that hung up about getting rid of 1FTE headcount, and if this is a medical or safety related task (which seems the case due to the issue they're making) they'd be well advised not to substitute with AI.

If you're in a very low wage, Unions normally adjust their subs to allow for that fact.

think of your union as an insurance policy, it's there for this type of situation, to protect you against being driven into the ground for a 0.0033% error margin.

Do please contact ACAS and or a citizensadvicebureau. You have the right to know if this is a disciplinary meeting. And you have the right to be accompanied by a colleague. Or you can ask to take a friend with you. It would be unfair to sack you for this. It's also unreasonable not to follow a fair process. Also make it clear that you are finding their approach stressful.

Your company needs to some sort of human factors training. 0 mistakes allowed with no checking mechanism is bonkers and they need to realise it’s a systems failure as well as individual mistakes.

Zero errors is an impossible target on data entry. There needs to be a review process or some sort of analytical check that highlights results that appear out of the ordinary to identify one's where eg digits have been reversed or are out by a factor of 10, 100 etc due to error in placing the decimal.

Are your entries ever checked for reasonableness or spot checked by your line manager?

If zero really is the acceptable error rate, I would expect peer review of every single item to be honest. And that's assuming there is no automated way of checking.

If you have some ideas for how checks could be done, bring them along to your meeting.

I would also ask them about previous errors made by you and others - it's impossible that there haven't been any.

But do talk to ACAS about your rights - they are not being reasonable. I would be wondering about tech solutions where the data is uploaded rather than being manually entered making your current role redundant. And then trying to avoid this.

Take a friend with you. Take notes. Loom at the acas website or ring them prior to meeting.

They can't just sack you from one mistake. There's a process they have to follow. If you need to tell them you had a personal issue that caused you some stress but that it's been dealt with and resolved. That gives you more wriggle room if they take things further.

I think you need to wait for the meeting tomorrow before you start worrying. According to your OP you aren't even sure it is a disciplinary yet.
They might want to make sure that they don't look like they are treating employees unfairly and while you 3 mistakes in 3 months is nothing when you consider the whole of your employment but if a newcomer was started and instantly made 3 mistakes in three months they might want to have the option to take further action.
It's seems a bit premature to be considering resigning etc.

can you get another job? ---> tell them to sod off
if not, apologise, bring brownies and anything to make this go away.

From reading your replies it looks as if a different department does the check on your data when they produce the invoices. So the company has built a system with checking because they expect some errors.

could their be a new manager, trying to show how good they are and what a “tight ship” they are managing. Perhaps the manager doesn’t understand the checks that have been designed into the system by someone “above” their pay grade.

During your review congratulate the company for having such error checking systems in place and r hereby showing understanding that no human imputing of data can be 100% accurate.

Oh God, you might be right there. Three mistakes out of thousands suggests that you are astonishingly accurate for a human being, but I guess AI will make no mistakes at all - until the system goes wrong in some way and everything it does is wrong.
I hope that your employers are not trying to get rid of you for this or any other reason. Please keep us posted.

Have a look at your contract. They're is a procedure they have to go through before they sack you. If you haven't had any disciplinaries already then don't worry!

Normal protocol is a verbal warning, then written. You can sacked immediately for gross misconduct but as your issue isn't this I'd say you will probably get a warning then a chance to appeal. Personally I'd appeal if they do anything other than give you a warning due to the fact that you're entering a large amount of data every day and the amount of mistakes you have made is so small!

Try not to worry. Speak to HR before the meeting if you're particularly worried.

Good luck 👍 💓

How did it go, @Snowowls ?

Jesus! I wouldn’t expect this to be a sackable offence, it’s down to human error and no one died!
Doctors make mistakes and don’t just get sacked!
I would go to the meeting and be apologetic. IF they talk about getting rid of you, I would ask them and only then if you can resign instead….
PLEASE RECORD THE MEETING

@Snowowls did you get a resolution? Interesting point on human error.

I'm surprised that, as an HR Director, you do not know that it is perfectly legal to record meetings like this for your own purposes.

"Own purposes" means literally that - for instance, many people like to record important meetings because you an't really take full part in the meeting and take notes at the same time, and it's impossible to remember everything that was said.

If circumstances arose later when the recording might become relevant to court or tribunal proceedings - for example, in an employment context, if someone made an untrue allegation about what happened at the meeting that was directly material to whatever the court action was about - it is always possible to apply to the judge for permission to use the recording.