Employment Rights - 5 weeks into job

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Claire1956

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Folks

we have a new hire in the co. for the past five weeks and there are issues. Having sat back and looked at the good points and bad points, we (owners) have concluded that the resource and the role are not a match.

I am keen to clear the decks and move on, as the role is important to the business. The applicant has oversold themselves. The current plan is to have a meeting that has a 'positive' approach to ending something that will not work out over the long term. Given that they are only a few weeks in the door, do I need to go through the extended process (warnings etc.), or can I 'cut to the chase'. We have had weekly meetings and there are actions that are assigned that are not being closed, however the real issues are more serious than that. The role carries quite a bit of responsibility, but the resource simply does not take these items on.

Any advice would be great! I feel the character could be quite litigious (sp) and am concerned about my rights as an employer.
 
Claire1956 said:
... I feel the character could be quite litigious (sp) and am concerned about my rights as an employer.
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If you constantly think about and refer to a human being as a 'resource' to be utilised for the good of the business, then maybe you're right to be concerned and maybe that particular human being is better off elsewhere.

I note the person concerned 'oversold themselves' not that, God Forbid, you made an error in appointing them.
 
Employees generally do not have rights under the unfair dismissals legislation until they have been working with a company for a year. That said, you cannot dismiss for any of the reasons in the equality legislation (e.g. age, sex, marital status, pregnancy) regardless of how long they have been working for you.

The other place you may deal with this is in your employment handbook - if you have a handbook and it doesn't distinguish as to the length of service where the disciplinary procedures apply, then you may have to apply them. If the employee argues that the procedures should have been applied and you didn't apply them, then the remedy would be for breach of contract (not under the UDA) - that's a whole different ballgame and the employee would want to be extremely keen to take a case in order to take that particular route.

Contracts of employment usually have a clause that shortens notice periods during probation - did you include such a clause?

I have certainly worked for companies where people have been let go with just notice during their probation period and before the UDA kicks in. That company never had any legal problems taking that approach, but poor performance was signposted along the way so no-one was ever really surprised when they were let go.

Agreed that you should take a positive approach - I also agree that, if a dismissal is in the offing because of a bad fit so soon into the employment relationship, short of the employee outright lying to you as to their qualifications, the mis-match should have come out at interview stage so both parties need to accept some responsibility. You'll know soon enough during the discussion with the employee how it's going to go.
 
Thanks for that - yes we know we are to blame for not teasing it out further in the interview. We have learnt that we need to review further our techniques at this point. To note, there were two interviews and also third visit, but this was more to do with showing them the ropes. We have learnt alot from this sceneario. The key issue is that the persons understanding of the processes is very good, 'paper work' side of things is good and the actual practical hands on and making things happen is weak. But if the third part is not done, then there are no details to track in the paper-work, so the cycle breaks down and that leave us very exposed.
 
keep it real short & real simple if you think its a trouble maker -

Dear XXX

We regret we are terminating your employment with immediate effecct as we find you are unsuitable for the position you were employed for.

We wish you the best of luck in your future career.


yours sincerely

yyy
 
mathepac said:
If you constantly think about and refer to a human being as a 'resource' to be utilised for the good of the business, then maybe you're right to be concerned and maybe that particular human being is better off elsewhere.

I note the person concerned 'oversold themselves' not that, God Forbid, you made an error in appointing them.
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I think Claire was just trying to keep it impersonal and people do oversell themselves in interviews, saying you can do something and doing it are two very different things. I have learnt this lesson also.

My advice for the future is take everybody on for a trail period.
As far as I know you can let this person go with no consequences to you.
 
Claire1956 said:
We have had weekly meetings and there are actions that are assigned that are not being closed, however the real issues are more serious than that. The role carries quite a bit of responsibility, but the resource simply does not take these items on.
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Have you spoken to the 'resource' about the serious real issues?
 
If you know that they are not going to work out then you are doing them no favours keeping them on as you will have to get rid of them sooner or later. If they are no good at their job they will be stressed and this may affect their health in the medium to long term.
It is also worth noting that if they screw up they are endangering the jobs of everyone in the business. Therefore you need to be definitive when you talk to them so that you don’t end up talking yourself into keeping them.
 
Well folks - firstly thanks a million for all the comments - both the critical and the constructive as there is a lot of truth in all of them. The 'boss' spoke with the person about the key issues we had experienced. The response was that each issue was the fault of someone else, nor was there any vibe of 'look, help me out here...', it was constant push back. So that is fairly indicative of where the realtionship was going.

We all (boss, the new hire and myself) met at about 30mins later and basically explained that the company is too small to have someone who doesn't pull with the team (there are only 12 of us) and that we had come to the end of the road. So we were asked for a P45 and a letter - which will be done today - and the person has left the site.
 
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