Mrs NW Suspended on full pay!!
Discussion
KFC said:
I don't agree with that at all. I don't have any legal experience but I do sometimes hire staff. If anyone applying was on a suspension for suspicion of theft their cv would be going straight in the bin...
Well frankly, anyone who puts "On suspension for suspicion of theft" on their CV probably isn't going to be the sharpest tool in the box.More seriously, how exactly would you know?
Precisely zero interviewers asked me "are you currently on suspension"?
All you need is a reference and proof of employment dates.
I guess I have been asked "why do you want to leave" but I would very much warm to a reply such as "well, my employer has suspended me for theft on a day when I wasn't there, promised full pay, reneged on it, failed to follow the most basic HR procedures and is likely to be settling with me before I soundly kick their ass in a tribunal".
walm said:
Well frankly, anyone who puts "On suspension for suspicion of theft" on their CV probably isn't going to be the sharpest tool in the box.
More seriously, how exactly would you know?
The lack of available reference from the current employer would set alarm bells ringing and cause further investigation. In my industry everyone seems to know everyone else so a bit of asking around would almost certainly lead to the truth coming out.More seriously, how exactly would you know?
walm said:
I guess I have been asked "why do you want to leave" but I would very much warm to a reply such as "well, my employer has suspended me for theft on a day when I wasn't there, promised full pay, reneged on it, failed to follow the most basic HR procedures and is likely to be settling with me before I soundly kick their ass in a tribunal".
The danger there is you're potentially getting one side of a story, and the other side has a completely different one to tell. Maybe they went in on the lunch break on a day they weren't actually working and stole something, maybe they stole something a few days previously but it wasn't noticed till their day off. Maybe they're telling the truth and its some stupid plan to get rid of an employee who's a pain in the ass? There isn't really any explanation that fills me with confidence in hiring this person.Fair points although employers often tend not to give old-school references these days (certainly in my old industry) - merely confirm dates of employment which Mrs NW's employers would still have to do (I believe).
Perhaps "warm to" was a bit strong but workplace politics being what they are I would be happy to take one side if I could do a little digging on it to confirm (Mr NW seems like a good independent source, I'll check with him!).
In any case she would still get the interview!
Perhaps "warm to" was a bit strong but workplace politics being what they are I would be happy to take one side if I could do a little digging on it to confirm (Mr NW seems like a good independent source, I'll check with him!).
In any case she would still get the interview!
Breadvan72 said:
Let David Ludlow handle it. He is a very sound employment lawyer. He may put one of his team on it as he is quite senior and expensive, but he has good assistants.
Exactly what we will be doing and exactly what he said he would do.The employer sent a notice of reschedule which was essentially their original letter with the meeting date changed. They failed to address any of the points outlined in Mrs NW's response to them. She is inclined to get the "investigation" over with and meet them on Monday in which case I will accompany her (she can be quite feisty!!). She will sleep on it and make a decision in the morning.
KFC said:
The danger there is you're potentially getting one side of a story, and the other side has a completely different one to tell. Maybe they went in on the lunch break on a day they weren't actually working and stole something, maybe they stole something a few days previously but it wasn't noticed till their day off. Maybe they're telling the truth and its some stupid plan to get rid of an employee who's a pain in the ass? There isn't really any explanation that fills me with confidence in hiring this person.
In the world of internet this is quite possible though I can assure you this is not the case. In fact the "case" they have presented is so riddled with inconsistency, ambiguity and contradiction that it resembles a colander, even to my untrained eye!NormalWisdom said:
In the world of internet this is quite possible though I can assure you this is not the case. In fact the "case" they have presented is so riddled with inconsistency, ambiguity and contradiction that it resembles a colander, even to my untrained eye!
I don't mean in your specific case - i'm just talking in general re the further employment interview explanations. If someone says one thing and fully blames another party and the other party fully blame them... the truth is often somewhere in the middle.NormalWisdom said:
Breadvan72 said:
Let David Ludlow handle it. He is a very sound employment lawyer. He may put one of his team on it as he is quite senior and expensive, but he has good assistants.
Exactly what we will be doing and exactly what he said he would do.The employer sent a notice of reschedule which was essentially their original letter with the meeting date changed. They failed to address any of the points outlined in Mrs NW's response to them. She is inclined to get the "investigation" over with and meet them on Monday in which case I will accompany her (she can be quite feisty!!). She will sleep on it and make a decision in the morning.
What is it about the job that has led her to put up with this
for so long?Red Devil said:
What is it about the job that has led her to put up with this for so long?
That is a very good question. She is a trained chef (spent many years on the road cooking for various touring rock/pop stars) and she more recently qualified as a teacher (she loves working with kids). She is also a trained counsellor. To manage catering in a school gives her the opportunity to deal with two passions and there is often call for her counselling skills (even some teachers have availed themselves of this). The better-paid opportunities like this are few and far between. for so long?In the kitchen she has 2 key measurements - COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) and Wastage. Since they took over in January, her COGS have been some 20% below the company's average and wastage has been running at around 4% (Company guide is 10%). She has out performed at every level (even if I say it myself, she is very good, my waist is testimony to that!!). However, her salary is around 25% higher than the other catering managers in the company and given the short-sightedness of these types of companies I suspect they have decided that it would be better to reduce overheads than employ her obvious talents in a more effective manner.
Edited by NormalWisdom on Thursday 15th May 05:58
Sounds plausible. Without wanting to get *too* tin foil hat about it I've got to say it really wouldn't surprise me if some manager somewhere in the chain has been given a target to reduce staff costs by a certain amount and your wife's salary is standing between them and a nice fat bonus.
charltjr said:
Sounds plausible. Without wanting to get *too* tin foil hat about it I've got to say it really wouldn't surprise me if some manager somewhere in the chain has been given a target to reduce staff costs by a certain amount and your wife's salary is standing between them and a nice fat bonus.
I have met a few bullies, and a few sharks, with the ability to back stab from the next county, and a few who look at half the evidence and jump to conclusion, but I don't know and have never met anyone, stupid enough to make up fake allegations, of such a serious nature, on purpose. 
Pit Pony said:
charltjr said:
Sounds plausible. Without wanting to get *too* tin foil hat about it I've got to say it really wouldn't surprise me if some manager somewhere in the chain has been given a target to reduce staff costs by a certain amount and your wife's salary is standing between them and a nice fat bonus.
I have met a few bullies, and a few sharks, with the ability to back stab from the next county, and a few who look at half the evidence and jump to conclusion, but I don't know and have never met anyone, stupid enough to make up fake allegations, of such a serious nature, on purpose. 
They have the power of arrest too.
I suspect the letter the OP's wife has may compare with the implausible nonsense a Chief Constable wrote in a letter to my MP. The written response to my MP took over four months, arriving just after the anniversary of the incident of concern. As my MP has some legal background I'm sure they'd know the significance of a one year time limit. That and being keen to keep me away from the IPCC could of course be coincidental.
Red 4, mentioned in a police recruitment thread that some police officers aren't above doing their colleagues over in the competition for recruitment.
It could be about a personal grudge or concerns about being a threat or even having a scapegoat to cover for whoever has taken the money. I know two crooks that have sought to blend into the background and give the appearance that it's others that are offending. Oddly both of them had insider information. One of them did porridge, though if they got caught these days I doubt they'd get a custodial sentence.
Edited by carinaman on Thursday 15th May 07:27
charltjr said:
Sounds plausible. Without wanting to get *too* tin foil hat about it I've got to say it really wouldn't surprise me if some manager somewhere in the chain has been given a target to reduce staff costs by a certain amount and your wife's salary is standing between them and a nice fat bonus.
It can be as simple as someone higher up (direct management) just doesn't like her and wants rid.Jasandjules said:
It can be as simple as someone higher up (direct management) just doesn't like her and wants rid.
That.Your comment reminded me of this:
http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Office_Polit...
Not everyone works to the same standards or moral codes.
Edited by carinaman on Thursday 15th May 09:36
Jasandjules said:
charltjr said:
Sounds plausible. Without wanting to get *too* tin foil hat about it I've got to say it really wouldn't surprise me if some manager somewhere in the chain has been given a target to reduce staff costs by a certain amount and your wife's salary is standing between them and a nice fat bonus.
It can be as simple as someone higher up (direct management) just doesn't like her and wants rid.Her increased salary (at a guess in real terms here - £10k per annum) is more than likely offset by the increased revenue and reduced costs of her kitchen operation, I'd wager the company is net much better off since she took over.
You don't sack your best performing employee even if they are the most expensive one you have by 20% margin (which if my £10k guess is even halfway accurate is not much in the scale of a catering operation running several school canteens). You learn from them and spread their knowledge / expertise across the rest of the workforce to generally increase performance as a whole.
Jasandjules said:
charltjr said:
Sounds plausible. Without wanting to get *too* tin foil hat about it I've got to say it really wouldn't surprise me if some manager somewhere in the chain has been given a target to reduce staff costs by a certain amount and your wife's salary is standing between them and a nice fat bonus.
It can be as simple as someone higher up (direct management) just doesn't like her and wants rid.Sacking 1: At the end of an evening shift, one of the pub owners puts the bin out to find a knife and fork in it. Honest mistake by my brother in law, it happened when he was scraping plates. He owns up admitting he was tired at the end of the shift.
Their response is a hand delivered letter the next morning informing him he is sacked. Additionally, they say they've done an audit of front of house and kitchen utensils, and without explanation to the methodology, come to the conclusion that as £300 of stuff is missing from the last audit, this is all down to the brother in law and deduct this from his final wages. Additionally, they inform him (without reasoning) that they will be keeping his expensive chef's knives.
Although I wrote him a letter to get his wages and knives back, he still needed a new job.
Sacking 2: Large catering firm run a staff canteen in a factory for 500 people. There's two managers and two deputies of which one is my BIL. One manager leaves and is not replaced. The remaining manager heaps the old manager's workload onto the deputies, one is the remaining manager's personal friend, the other is my brother in law.
Avoiding the story of how my BIL reported numerous instances of bullying from the other deputy which were ignored, and the shouted threat of violence in from of clients and the manager also ignored, here's how they got rid of him:
They made it part of the deputies job to order food for the week. For someone who struggles with English and Maths, planning and ordering £1000 of food is a challenge. Especially when you've not been trained to do it. Seeing that he's failing, the Manager takes the job totally from her friend and gives it to my BIL. Still no training. After there's under-ordering and wastage they put him 'on training report' where his performance 'improved' or, as I told him, is assessed to see if they can sack him.
I informed him this would be a sham, and got him to write three times to the manager to request the necessary training to place large food orders. He was told that the manager was too busy on three occasions. He notes the times where he works overtime for free and comes in on days off to do the food ordering.
Lo and behold, they decide he is incapable of his job as he can't do food ordering. It is ignored that the other deputies performance in terms of wastage is exactly the same for the same period. They sack him anyway.
I informed him that the appeals procedure would be a sham too, and indeed it was. An HR person came from 'Head Office', and in the hearing my BIL showed her the evidence that his supposed low performance was enough to go through the whole escalated disciplinary procedure to sacking, yet, the other deputy with similar performance, the manager's friend had not even received a warning. Additionally he shows the HR person the written requests for training, and tells her that these requests were not fulfilled, which the Manager is forced to admit. Thus, the process of a training period to increase his performance has fundamentally failed as he has not received any training.
Yet, his appeal was turned down.
JustinP1 said:
I think both are rife in the catering industry. I've been called in to help my brother in law half a dozen times to help him with redundancies and sackings. Here's a taste:
Sacking 1: At the end of an evening shift, one of the pub owners puts the bin out to find a knife and fork in it. Honest mistake by my brother in law, it happened when he was scraping plates. He owns up admitting he was tired at the end of the shift.
Their response is a hand delivered letter the next morning informing him he is sacked. Additionally, they say they've done an audit of front of house and kitchen utensils, and without explanation to the methodology, come to the conclusion that as £300 of stuff is missing from the last audit, this is all down to the brother in law and deduct this from his final wages. Additionally, they inform him (without reasoning) that they will be keeping his expensive chef's knives.
Although I wrote him a letter to get his wages and knives back, he still needed a new job.
Sacking 2: Large catering firm run a staff canteen in a factory for 500 people. There's two managers and two deputies of which one is my BIL. One manager leaves and is not replaced. The remaining manager heaps the old manager's workload onto the deputies, one is the remaining manager's personal friend, the other is my brother in law.
Avoiding the story of how my BIL reported numerous instances of bullying from the other deputy which were ignored, and the shouted threat of violence in from of clients and the manager also ignored, here's how they got rid of him:
They made it part of the deputies job to order food for the week. For someone who struggles with English and Maths, planning and ordering £1000 of food is a challenge. Especially when you've not been trained to do it. Seeing that he's failing, the Manager takes the job totally from her friend and gives it to my BIL. Still no training. After there's under-ordering and wastage they put him 'on training report' where his performance 'improved' or, as I told him, is assessed to see if they can sack him.
I informed him this would be a sham, and got him to write three times to the manager to request the necessary training to place large food orders. He was told that the manager was too busy on three occasions. He notes the times where he works overtime for free and comes in on days off to do the food ordering.
Lo and behold, they decide he is incapable of his job as he can't do food ordering. It is ignored that the other deputies performance in terms of wastage is exactly the same for the same period. They sack him anyway.
I informed him that the appeals procedure would be a sham too, and indeed it was. An HR person came from 'Head Office', and in the hearing my BIL showed her the evidence that his supposed low performance was enough to go through the whole escalated disciplinary procedure to sacking, yet, the other deputy with similar performance, the manager's friend had not even received a warning. Additionally he shows the HR person the written requests for training, and tells her that these requests were not fulfilled, which the Manager is forced to admit. Thus, the process of a training period to increase his performance has fundamentally failed as he has not received any training.
Yet, his appeal was turned down.
Blimey Sacking 1: At the end of an evening shift, one of the pub owners puts the bin out to find a knife and fork in it. Honest mistake by my brother in law, it happened when he was scraping plates. He owns up admitting he was tired at the end of the shift.
Their response is a hand delivered letter the next morning informing him he is sacked. Additionally, they say they've done an audit of front of house and kitchen utensils, and without explanation to the methodology, come to the conclusion that as £300 of stuff is missing from the last audit, this is all down to the brother in law and deduct this from his final wages. Additionally, they inform him (without reasoning) that they will be keeping his expensive chef's knives.
Although I wrote him a letter to get his wages and knives back, he still needed a new job.
Sacking 2: Large catering firm run a staff canteen in a factory for 500 people. There's two managers and two deputies of which one is my BIL. One manager leaves and is not replaced. The remaining manager heaps the old manager's workload onto the deputies, one is the remaining manager's personal friend, the other is my brother in law.
Avoiding the story of how my BIL reported numerous instances of bullying from the other deputy which were ignored, and the shouted threat of violence in from of clients and the manager also ignored, here's how they got rid of him:
They made it part of the deputies job to order food for the week. For someone who struggles with English and Maths, planning and ordering £1000 of food is a challenge. Especially when you've not been trained to do it. Seeing that he's failing, the Manager takes the job totally from her friend and gives it to my BIL. Still no training. After there's under-ordering and wastage they put him 'on training report' where his performance 'improved' or, as I told him, is assessed to see if they can sack him.
I informed him this would be a sham, and got him to write three times to the manager to request the necessary training to place large food orders. He was told that the manager was too busy on three occasions. He notes the times where he works overtime for free and comes in on days off to do the food ordering.
Lo and behold, they decide he is incapable of his job as he can't do food ordering. It is ignored that the other deputies performance in terms of wastage is exactly the same for the same period. They sack him anyway.
I informed him that the appeals procedure would be a sham too, and indeed it was. An HR person came from 'Head Office', and in the hearing my BIL showed her the evidence that his supposed low performance was enough to go through the whole escalated disciplinary procedure to sacking, yet, the other deputy with similar performance, the manager's friend had not even received a warning. Additionally he shows the HR person the written requests for training, and tells her that these requests were not fulfilled, which the Manager is forced to admit. Thus, the process of a training period to increase his performance has fundamentally failed as he has not received any training.
Yet, his appeal was turned down.
I think in both of those instances I'd have found a way to plant a dead rat and evidence of before an anonymous tip to environmental health. Not that I am in any way vindictive you understand 
hora said:
Jasandjules said:
It can be as simple as someone higher up (direct management) just doesn't like her and wants rid.
Mrshora and her boss were running a very successful department. Infact theirs was the best dept in the business. New Malaysian owners had a walk round the offices and decided to sack both as they didnt like the ranges/the two. Sacked even though both had been there years. It was costly.
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