handling of employment rules and regs

[completerookie]

Its a wide open subject, but how do you all get on with handling staff re: disciplinary, grievance,etc etc.

I work with my sister who runs a large haulage company, and has 30+ drivers, warehouse, garage staff etc etc.
we use a "specialist" company to help us make sure we follow the rules, but it seems everytime we follow their "rules", they seem to change partway down the "procedure"
this last week, we were dismissing someone, and towards the end of the week, the response was "you can give him a written warning, or a final warning, but its not enough to sack him (despite 11 previous issues that he'd already clocked up) - if you sack him, we cannot defend you"

I know of someone, who phones up acass as the employer to get thier view, gets another senior staff to phone up pretending to be the disgruntled employee, put 2+2 together and follow their gut instinct.

so, opening up a can of worms, how does the rest of the forum deal with employee issues?

kev

[chris ashdown]

I think it depends on wether you have engaged someone to tell you waht to do and then guarantee if you act on their advice they will cover and fines etc like Peninsular one of the largest ones or if they dont guarantee anything

The ones who guarantee have a big reason not to suggest firing someone unless they have 1000% proof where as the others do not have to be so sure

Most tribunals I understand are lost on details rather then the actual cause, so if the company did not follow the ACAS sugestions they would most likely loos even though if they had followed the rules they would have won

The expert we have found and who helps a lot of people on UK Business Forums is Karl Limpert who runs a company named employmentlawclinic.com. his rates are reasonable and seems a very nice guy who gives you the facts

The FSB is another route you can take with cheap membership and lots of written advice for handling a lot of situations far better value than say Peninsular

Anyone considering Penisular should read about them on UK Business Forums

[Fairyglass]

We've found the FSB to be great- their legal advice team come as part of the membership package and are knowledgeable and helpful. On the two occasions we've had to use them for employee problems they've provided a solution which worked for us and we've had no comeback from the employees.
Hope this helps.
Ben

[Jan]

I called Acass when I had an employee related issue to resolve. They were very helpful - super paranoid which is probably appropriate.

Regards,

[saucysal]

Go over-the-top on following procedure

We haven't had to sack anybody, but have had to make people redundant. Though it all seemed quite ridiculous and over-the-top, we followed procedures at least to the letter if not more so. We had repeated discussion meetings with staff, opportunities for them to come up with alternative suggestions, notices about timing of next meetings, everything put into writing at each stage, calculation tables listing criteria and scores as to how we came up with our choices, etc. showing that everything was precisely fair and unbiased, no prejudice. In the end, everything went smoothly, though obviously distressing, and there were no repercussions.

Sarah