Wetherspoons Coughs Up £25k

[Al Gorithum]

Wetherspoons worker investigated over using staff discount for family meal gets £25,000 payout. Sounds a bit harsh but if it improves employers behaviors I suppose that's a good thing.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/we...

[Chrisgr31]

So the staff discount for 7 people eating was £19.17. It’s not a very generous discount!

Surely also the venue that deducted the staff discount shoukd have said it didn’t apply?

[butchstewie]

Good.

Too many employers taking the piss with this kind of thing.

[Murph7355]

Should have ended after the first meeting and apology.

Dumb arsed manager.

Though it's possibly also fair to note only one side is being fully portrayed.

[miniman]

Devil’s in the detail though - the core issue was not making reasonable adjustments for his autism during the investigation process. So presumably a non-autistic employee would have been binned.

[98elise]

butchstewie said:

Good.

Too many employers taking the piss with this kind of thing.

How are the employers taking the piss? They had a policy of no more than 4 people getting the discount, he got it for 7.

£20k for hurt feelings seems a lot of compensation.

[Tam_Mullen]

The most annoying thing about that is twice referring to the 'spoons he works in being called the Albany Place, despite using an image which clearly says Albany Palace.

[butchstewie]

98elise said:

How are the employers taking the piss? They had a policy of no more than 4 people getting the discount, he got it for 7.

£20k for hurt feelings seems a lot of compensation.

There's a point in this process where any decent employer would simply have said "apology accepted" rather than banging the "rules are rules" drum.

Right now as with Waitrose and the autistic lad nobody at Wetherspoons seems to have thought what happens when you're all over the newspapers and look like utter for the sake of £20.

A bit of common sense could have avoided all of this.

Now it'll cost them a lot more than £20 and rightly so.

[Dynion Araf Uchaf]

butchstewie said:

There's a point in this process where any decent employer would simply have said "apology accepted" rather than banging the "rules are rules" drum.

Right now as with Waitrose and the autistic lad nobody at Wetherspoons seems to have thought what happens when you're all over the newspapers and look like utter for the sake of £20.

A bit of common sense could have avoided all of this.

Now it'll cost them a lot more than £20 and rightly so.

Agreed.

But this is probably less about Wetherspoons and more about a bit of a bell end of a manager. The hospitality industry employ some utter cretins and this manager might be one of them. Come to think of it, he might also have been autistic.

Having said that, why Wetherspoons agreed to fight the case and go to a tribunal is insanity. I guess they feel the need to put the fear of god into the rest of their staff.

[Gareth79]

Full decision here:
https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/m...

It looks like the bungled the disciplinary proceedings, which caused a mental health breakdown for a period. It seems they then got their st together and produced a plan to get him back to work, which was agreed as "exemplary". My guess is that his mother is somebody not to be messed with

[Panamax]

Tam_Mullen said:

referring to the 'spoons ..... clearly says Albany Palace.

Well that's come a shock to me, the words 'spoons and palace in the same sentence. I wonder if they have a branch in Windsor?

They do! And, of course, it's called The King and Castle. No doubt Chuckie pops in for breakfast whenever he can.

[Hoofy]

"called to a gross misconduct hearing after he used his staff discount to pay for a meal for seven people, including himself, without realising that the pub chain’s policy only applied to parties of four or less."

Seriously? A gross misconduct hearing? Surely, "Dave, can we have a word, <explain policy>. Don't do it again... at least without checking with me first. If it's a birthday we might want to prepare a cake."

[AbbeyNormal]

Hoofy said:

"called to a gross misconduct hearing after he used his staff discount to pay for a meal for seven people, including himself, without realising that the pub chain s policy only applied to parties of four or less."

Seriously? A gross misconduct hearing? Surely, "Dave, can we have a word, <explain policy>. Don't do it again... at least without checking with me first. If it's a birthday we might want to prepare a cake."

and that is why you never want to work in a 'Spoons.

[Pebbles167]

Good.

I've been in there, it's in Trowbridge. A grubby place and the service is st.

[Hoofy]

AbbeyNormal said:

Hoofy said:

"called to a gross misconduct hearing after he used his staff discount to pay for a meal for seven people, including himself, without realising that the pub chain s policy only applied to parties of four or less."

Seriously? A gross misconduct hearing? Surely, "Dave, can we have a word, <explain policy>. Don't do it again... at least without checking with me first. If it's a birthday we might want to prepare a cake."

and that is why you never want to work in a 'Spoons.

Disappointing!

[miniman]

Pebbles167 said:

Good.

I've been in there, it's in Trowbridge. A grubby place and the service is st.

The Wetherspoons, or Trowbridge?

[119]

Good to see another business getting reamed.

Hopefully they will be in the hands of the receivers soon as well.

Can't be having these food chains taking up valuable retail space.

[Bonefish Blues]

Gareth79 said:

Full decision here:
https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/m...

It looks like the bungled the disciplinary proceedings, which caused a mental health breakdown for a period. It seems they then got their st together and produced a plan to get him back to work, which was agreed as "exemplary". My guess is that his mother is somebody not to be messed with

Woah hold on there soldier! You'll get nowhere reading the detail of what actually happened

[butchstewie]

119 said:

Good to see another business getting reamed.

Hopefully they will be in the hands of the receivers soon as well.

Can't be having these food chains taking up valuable retail space.

Given they employ over 40,000 people and they'd find themselves out of work that's a strange thing to wish for.

[Gladers01]

Hoofy said:

Disappointing!

Sounds like the manager was looking for an excuse to get shot of the employee and then bungled the tribunal hearing, suspect both will on borrowed time for the forseeable.

On a brighter note we tried the new on the menu avocado muffin recently for brekkers and it was absolutely delicious at £3 including hot drinks