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:
- I should ask for details of the grievance and the minutes from the meeting where she outlines her complaint and evidence?
- 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?
- 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