Disaplianry Procedures

Sully

Hi folks
Is there any process whereby before one gets a formal disciplinary for a possible verbal warning that one must have had an informal warning first? When it's not gross misconduct but for one areas targets being below expectations resulting in said procedure being required?

Heroditas

It sounds quite unusual. Typically if someone's performance falls below standard, then it should have been flagged in any 1:1 meetings by their line manager and then they would typically be placed on a Performance Improvement Plan.
Seems a drastic measure to implement disciplinary proceedings straight away. However in a way, a PIP could be seen as a sort of disciplinary proceedings.

_Brian

Typically a pip would be delivered, if that fails then you would be into disciplinary procedures starting with a verbal warning.

Avatar MIA

What does your employee handbook say. I don't think going straight to verbal warning is particularly unusual, depending on the transgression and employee notified procedure.

Edit, on the phone no idea how the thumb down symbol got there.

_Brian

If the company doesn’t use PIPs then maybe straight to verbal warning is the procedure.
It would also be dependent on why the employee missed the goals.

daheff

Avatar MIA wrote: »

What does your employee handbook say. I don't think going straight to verbal warning is particularly unusual, depending on the transgression and employee notified procedure.
/quote]

What if the handbook is very vague?

Avatar MIA

daheff wrote: »

Avatar MIA wrote: »

What does your employee handbook say. I don't think going straight to verbal warning is particularly unusual, depending on the transgression and employee notified procedure.

What if the handbook is very vague?

Then it would be hard for the company to stand over and say their actions were fair.

FizzleSticks

This post has been deleted.

daheff

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Then it would be hard for the company to stand over and say their actions were fair.

But they could still fire the person (rightly or wrongly) & just pay them off?

From my experience a lot of us multis go this route when they want someone gone

It's not fair & employee loses out ultimately

sdanseo

Nothing in the law to stop them going straight to verbal. If they are skipping that, it's unreasonable at best and unfair at worst. Make a personal note of everything they do and anything they don't do that you feel they should be.

_Brian

Again, it’s importsnt to know why this employee is being disciplined because area targets were missed, are you the only employee in the area ?? We’re others treated the same.

We’re targets missed through errors or tardiness ??

Avatar MIA

daheff wrote: »

But they could still fire the person (rightly or wrongly) & just pay them off?

From my experience a lot of us multis go this route when they want someone gone

It's not fair & employee loses out ultimately

I'm all for the legal rights of employees and for them to be treated fairly, but where does the company's rights and fairness come into it do you think.

There are bad (performing/untrustworthy) employees out there and companies need a fair mechanism to get rid of them.

Most multi nationals have HR departments, meaning they know what's required get past the WRC or at least they should, so they wont just fire someone and risk a two year salary settlement. Unless they can for Gross misconduct.

daheff

Avatar MIA wrote: »

I'm all for the legal rights of employees and for them to be treated fairly, but where does the company's rights and fairness come into it do you think.

There are bad (performing/untrustworthy) employees out there and companies need a fair mechanism to get rid of them.

Most multi nationals have HR departments, meaning they know what's required get past the WRC or at least they should, so they wont just fire someone and risk a two year salary settlement. Unless they can for Gross misconduct.

Unfortunately companies have an unequal power in a lot of these situations. They know most workers do not want the stress (and cost) of having to go to court...the cost to a work who loses is disproportionate to a company who loses.


From what i've seen in the last few years of work, if a company wants you gone they will engineer it so you are.

Avatar MIA

daheff wrote: »

Unfortunately companies have an unequal power in a lot of these situations. They know most workers do not want the stress (and cost) of having to go to court...the cost to a work who loses is disproportionate to a company who loses.


From what i've seen in the last few years of work, if a company wants you gone they will engineer it so you are.

I don't agree with you. It's not as if Ireland isn't known for being litigious. "managing out" an employee is a recipe for an appearance at the WRC.

We are a country near full employment. Hiring staff is a complete pain and takes up a huge amount of time and effort to then train. Even "managing out" employees would take a lot of time and effort.

Sometimes employees just aren't suitable.

_Brian

It would be rare to see an employee “managed out” for absolutely no reason.
The majority I’ve seen were poor performers, poor timekeepers or just plain trouble makers.

It’s impossible to say much in this case because we’re getting scant information and only one side of the story.

daheff

_Brian wrote: »

It would be rare to see an employee “managed out” for absolutely no reason.
The majority I’ve seen were poor performers, poor timekeepers or just plain trouble makers.

It’s impossible to say much in this case because we’re getting scant information and only one side of the story.

In nearly every job I've been in so far, theres been a couple of people managed out. Granted some of them are PITA....but some of the times its been because they didnt get on with the manager...or that they complained about things not working right (companies with head in sand approach to problems).

_Brian

daheff wrote: »

In nearly every job I've been in so far, theres been a couple of people managed out. Granted some of them are PITA....but some of the times its been because they didnt get on with the manager...or that they complained about things not working right (companies with head in sand approach to problems).

I’ve seen spiteful managers manage people out, but it’s not that common.

daheff

_Brian wrote: »

I’ve seen spiteful managers manage people out, but it’s not that common.

I'm not saying hundreds are being managed out... But absolutely it is happening

As far as I see when people are being managed out, managers generally cannot get employee on a pip for specific tasks (you'd want to be incompetent to not be able to do your tasks when you know you are being watched), but instead rely on the company "values" which are easily stretched to suit an agenda.

_Brian

daheff wrote: »

I'm not saying hundreds are being managed out... But absolutely it is happening

As far as I see when people are being managed out, managers generally cannot get employee on a pip for specific tasks (you'd want to be incompetent to not be able to do your tasks when you know you are being watched), but instead rely on the company "values" which are easily stretched to suit an agenda.

Company values ??
Only an idiot manager would try manage comeone out on such woolly detail. Be better hide your time and get them into a well constructed PIP, down hill peddling from there on.

seamus

Any disciplinary processes I've ever seen allow the employer to skip past verbal/informal warnings at their own discretion and proceed straight to written/formal warnings and PIPs, if they believe it's warranted.

The employee doesn't really have any scope to fight back or argue about the disciplinary process until they've been dismissed or forced to quit.

Avatar MIA

seamus wrote: »

Any disciplinary processes I've ever seen allow the employer to skip past verbal/informal warnings at their own discretion and proceed straight to written/formal warnings and PIPs, if they believe it's warranted.

The employee doesn't really have any scope to fight back or argue about the disciplinary process until they've been dismissed or forced to quit.

They can, but if it goes to the WRC it is a lot harder to defend if challenged.

o1s1n

daheff wrote: »

I'm not saying hundreds are being managed out... But absolutely it is happening

As far as I see when people are being managed out, managers generally cannot get employee on a pip for specific tasks (you'd want to be incompetent to not be able to do your tasks when you know you are being watched), but instead rely on the company "values" which are easily stretched to suit an agenda.

If you're managing someone out, you need to set the PIP up with concrete targets and achievements that need to be met. The targets also need to be in line with the rest of the team.

You really need to be able to stand in a court and say 'X person was let go because they failed to achieve X target over X amount of time, this is detrimental to our business because ....'

If you brought up a wooly reason, or mentioned anything to do with personality clashes you'd probably get nailed to the wall.

/Edit - just to note that I'm not condoning that kind of thing, it's something I had to do a few times in my last job. Really horrible for all involved and part of the reason I moved to a totally different field!

daheff

o1s1n wrote: »

If you're managing someone out, you need to set the PIP up with concrete targets and achievements that need to be met. The targets also need to be in line with the rest of the team.

You really need to be able to stand in a court and say 'X person was let go because they failed to achieve X target over X amount of time, this is detrimental to our business because ....'

If you brought up a wooly reason, or mentioned anything to do with personality clashes you'd probably get nailed to the wall.

/Edit - just to note that I'm not condoning that kind of thing, it's something I had to do a few times in my last job. Really horrible for all involved and part of the reason I moved to a totally different field!

Absolutely agree with you 100% that anybody who is being let go should be because they are not able to do the job. But like it or not, unfortunately I've seen (and continue to see) people let go for all sorts of BS reasons. I've seen people put on PIPs and follow through to the letter and still be gone. They get paid off, but the problem is the maximum award to an employee is not sufficiently high to be a deter rant to a company (i think the max is 2 times annual salary- for an average worker that might be 70K if they fight hard. 70k to a multi-billion dollar company is peanuts).

Avatar MIA

daheff wrote: »

Absolutely agree with you 100% that anybody who is being let go should be because they are not able to do the job. But like it or not, unfortunately I've seen (and continue to see) people let go for all sorts of BS reasons. I've seen people put on PIPs and follow through to the letter and still be gone. They get paid off, but the problem is the maximum award to an employee is not sufficiently high to be a deter rant to a company (i think the max is 2 times annual salary- for an average worker that might be 70K if they fight hard. 70k to a multi-billion dollar company is peanuts).

What industry do you work in?

Multinationals are not managed by fools and their P&L's are closely monitored, and if legal fees or "pay off fees" cropped up they'd not be ignored, so no manager is going to get away with being a bully and the multinational paying for it. So, to think a MN is going to pay €70k so some manager can play the bully is fantasy.

Do I think they would let employees go if they could ultimately save money, yes. But, that's a different matter.

daheff

Avatar MIA wrote: »

What industry do you work in?

I've worked for finance teams in financial services & industry. So I've seen the invoices & accounts

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Multinationals are not managed by fools and their P&L's are closely monitored, and if legal fees or "pay off fees" cropped up they'd not be ignored, so no manager is going to get away with being a bully and the multinational paying for it. So, to think a MN is going to pay €70k so some manager can play the bully is fantasy.

Do I think they would let employees go if they could ultimately save money, yes. But, that's a different matter.

I beg to differ. From experience I've seen this happen. And generally at a lot less than the max payout. Local managers get budgets with a good bit of discretion. And get to paint the picture of what happened to hq too.

daheff

daheff wrote: »

I've worked for finance teams in financial services & industry. So I've seen the invoices & accounts



I beg to differ. From experience I've seen this happen. And generally at a lot less than the max payout. Local managers get budgets with a good bit of discretion. And get to paint the picture of what happened to hq too.

Seen this as company policy in a big US firm I worked for as they are desperately trying to cut the world wide work force without having to pay redundancies etc.
Management worldwide told to give as many staff as possible poor reviews as this would give grounds for termination.
Countries where the workforce are unionised and/or have more worker friendly laws stated that this plan wouldn't work and neither would the follow up plan to place them on impossible PIPs. Here (Dublin) they were told the PIPs plan would work and most of the folks I seen placed on these were not on the best of terms with their line manager due to personality clashes, not that they were performing poorly.

My advice to you OP would be to discuss the case with a union rep if you have one or a solicitor if you feel it's warented.

s0252

If the employee previously engaged in a PIP, and achieved their targets, but subsequently failed to perform to expectation it wouldn't be unusual to enter into the disciplinary process and go straight to verbal, or even written, warning stage. They've proved they can work to target while on a PIP so their underperformance while not under scrutiny could be seen to be an attitude or behavioural issue. If they have never been supported to reach their objectives it would be unusual to go straight to verbal warning stage.