Malicious grievance against me

[DandelionPockets]

Hi all - looking for advice or solidarity because I'm really being put through it atm.

I manage a team of 5 in the transport industry, I've done this job for 6 years with a break in the middle for mat-leave. When I returned from mat-leave they had hired a new person. She has been a consistently poor performer (never answering emails or messages, never updating the internal database, ignoring supplier calls, asking other people to do her work. Some days it seems like she does about 30minutes of work all day. Constant escalations to me from colleagues because her not doing work has led to them not being able to do their jobs).

The person has protected characteristics and along with HR we documented reasonable adjustments we would make and I support these. I also document our 1:1s on email and give consistent feedback on expectations and performance. I ask her about each of those things she hasn't done in the 1:1s and ask her to do them by the next week's 1:1 and sometimes they are not done even after that.

So after 3 months of this I spoke with HR and my line manager to say we need to do a capability review, everyone agrees. We do the capability review and the outcome is a PIP with clear objectives. No formal warning as advised by our lawyers. She has 6 weeks to show she has improved before the next review. She brings a union rep who is extremely argumentative during the meeting, but myself and the HR manager do well.

After the capability hearing there is a flurry of emails from the employee to the Head of HR. One is a grievance against the HR manager, one is a grievance against me, a whole new list of adjustments they require (some are very very unreasonable). Quite stressful for me but I'm assured by HR and my line manager i've followed process perfectly and been a supportive line manager. All I know is that the grievance states that I have not been supportive of their protected characteristics and harassing them as I have not cancelled our scheduled 1:1 for next week and have been unfair in not giving more of a chance to improve outside of a formal process.

My manager and Head of HR are meeting with the employee next week to talk about the grievance against me as per the policy which I know means they need to treat it seriously even though it does make me feel uneasy as I've never ever had a direct report complain about me before.

So my questions are:

1. I should ask for details of the grievance and the minutes from the meeting where she outlines her complaint and evidence?
2. The grievance is likely to not be upheld as I haven't done anything wrong and it's a direct ploy to stop the formal PIP. Should I send a counter grievance following the outcome to say it was malicious?
3. Should I make sure to have a formal meeting with HR and my line manager to give my evidence/side of things. Should I start gathering evidence and witness statements myself?

I just want to make sure that I'm not being ridiculous but also standing up for myself with all this.

Thank you

I had never heard of RSD. I understand some people might potentially experience this but honestly I think there are many more vindictive grabby people...

Agreed!

So sorry you’re going through this Op!

Sounds like her PIP claim might need reviewing if she’s been on the make from day 1. I can’t work out if she genuinely thinks she’s got a case here or she’s just incredibly stupid.

I have to say out of all of this the being recorded without my knowledge is what's shook me the most because I just genuinely never occurred to me that someone I manage could be doing that.

You live and you learn (and consider the next career move being a non-line managerial role...)

@DandelionPocketsI can well believe it’s still rumbling on. I’m a union official and have met this type of employee on a number of occasions. I’ve a number of them currently on my books. You have my sincere sympathies.

My friend is a union rep, and says that often his role is to tell the complainant when they simply don't have a case, or when it's time to let go, or to quit with a little bit of respect left. He says it's far more professional than letting them (or encouraging them to) dig a deeper and deeper hole.

It's a pity that your employee has the 'terrier' kind. It doesn't sound like he's got a handle on reality any more than she has.

Just popping my head in to say that actually recording your colleagues can be permissable evidence in tribunals. I had recordings of my colleague that helped get me my settlement. You may also find these links useful.

https://www.lindsays.co.uk/news-and-insights/insights/can-an-employee-rely-on-a-secret-recording-at-a-disciplinary-hearing

https://www.formalgrievance.com/grievance-and-disciplinary-hearing-procedure/

So what’s on the recording? Evidence against you?

Seems fairly dramatic to call her delusional if she has evidence. In your company it might be the worser crime to covertly record but it wouldn’t be in a tribunal.

As far as I can tell nobody that was recorded has said or done anything that helps her case against the company.

She doesn't have any evidence.

Not sure why people are suggesting the OP has done anything wrong here... people do file malicious grievances! Too often!

I got covertly recorded once in a disciplinary appeal hearing (I was a witness but also work in HR). It was aimed at me not the whole Panel. She ended making a Tribunal claim and as part of the prep for it she produced this recording which was then transcribed by solicitors and included in the bundle of documents.

It was terrible quality, you could barely hear half of it and so the transcription was full of "?????" and incomplete sentences. Most of it me no sense at all, Plus I have a strong accent and some of the words were transcribed wrong and made it unintentionally funny. Anyway we won the case so it didn't help her!

But like you it made me feel a bit weird and ever since I've always been a bit wary in difficult 1:1 meetings to choose my words carefully.

Good luck OP, horrible when these things drag on and on.

If she had zero evidence your company wouldn’t be paying her off. Malicious claims get £0.

No, that's not right.

There is no evidence of discrimination or mistreatment. The company have offered her a settlement to effectively go away. It's not like they can fire her.

@LemonGelato So sorry you've had to experience that.

You sound particularly naive to this all. A total liability.

It’s obvious that your company wants to get rid of her, however the point you are missing is that legal and finance teams are not going to agree to pay out for a settlement agreement if what she is claiming is totally fabricated and malicious. That is not what settlement agreements are used for. If your side has a more likely than not chance of winning the case, a settlement obviously isn’t required. If the odds are not in your favour, a settlement agreement is a cheaper way to limit liability. Ie settlement agreements tend to be less than what a claimant would get from court as there are no incentives for a company to agree to one otherwise.

Your legal team has reviewed what happened and has decided a payment is appropriate. That means some type of shit show has occurred. Keep telling yourself that it’s because you’ve done nothing wrong, but the truth is, if you had evidence that you did nothing wrong, no settlement would be required. Employees get sacked without settlements on a daily basis. Settlements are only required if there is legitimate risk to the business.

Companies absolutely DO use settlement agreements when their is no fault.

When the options are: Spend ££ on a settlement, usually with an NDA
or
spend £££££ on legal fees, plus goodness knows how many man hours preparing evidence and taking staff away from their day jobs to provide statements etc - a settlement is often employed to facilitate a quick and smooth exit of subpar employees.

You are the one who sounds naïve if you think HR simply boils down to what's 'fair'. It encompasses a great many things, but usually they'll take the path of least resistance, which settlement agreements so commonly are. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the majority of settlement agreements I've facilitated in my years in this department are due to them being a handy tool to simply get rid of low achieving staff without a long disciplinary process, rather than it having anything to do with employer fault.

Agree with this.

Yes 100 pc this. The majority of the cases that do make it to the ET that are like this are public sector where we are generally not able to pay people off.
In my previous private sector company we'd pay quite high sums to avoid the fees and hassle of an ET, even when there was clear evidence of no case to answer

I have absolutely paid people off as part of a settlement with an NDA, where the employer has done nothing wrong, because the costs and damage to the organisation from a protracted legal process would have been worse than the cost of a negotiated settlement.

I have also been on the employer side of disciplinary and grievance processes. I have generally found union reps to be a positive in managing their clients expectations, professionalising the process and explaining to their client what is reasonable in the circumstances.

It’s not personal , remember that or you’ll go mad! I had similar and when my boss told me I got upset, he was really surprised and said but it won’t be upheld.

at our place you don’t get to see the details which is bonkers but my boss let me know off the record so when I was interviewed I knew what bits to answer without being asked the question. You could tell what she’d said though by what was asked.

@TorroFerney sorry you've had similar experiences. I think it does come as a shock the first time it happens to a good manager.

Same, quite easy to piece together the claims against you from the questions being asked as part of the grievance investigation!

I'm sorry but you're the one who is being naive.

Businesses weigh up the expense of defending a claim, including legal fees, lost productivity, sick leave and other costs relating to innocent staff harmed, reputation damage from malicious accusations, etc. All of that can be significantly more expensive than agreeing a small settlement with a non-disclosure agreement to draw an end to it all. Even where the accusations are baseless or malicious.

It's just a business decision that it's cheaper and less disruptive to settle and move on. Businesses budget for this as a way to move people on.

actually you can get a settlement even if you dont have a case. DH had a malicous grievance against him after disciplining someone and had a shit ton of evidence - statements, CCTV, attendance records etc - to prove it was bullshit. However, the cost of defending the company at tribunal, with lawyers fees and staff time etc was deemed to be higher than just settling.
This is what a lot of employees count on. The employee in question had done it before in a previous organisation but most companies just give standard 'dates only' references so future employers don't find out.
Some claims are genuine (mine was) and some aren't. Ultimately only a tribunal can decide that, if it goes that far.