Fair enough Mastiles – good luck with punting him! 😉 If you get taken to tribunal just blame Shack 😆

I normally do blame him 😉

nothing we can do but something we can’t ignore.

Well if there really is nothing you can do (to convince him to stay), then yes you can ignore it. Absolutely nothing else you can do – the only difference from “I might be run over by a bus” is your ability to offer him new terms, as by the sounds of things you don’t definitely know he will leave, so the fact it’s something he’s choosing is pretty much irrelevant from your perspective.

OP in being the needier than usual. Here’s your cake boss. Would you like to eat it too?

Tell him he’s having the company pink tigra from now on. He’ll shirley leave after that.

Ask him how he feels about a compromise agreement.If you both agree on it, you could offer him a severance payment and he agrees (and signs the paperwork that you will have written out) to end it there.This would stop him from taking it to a tribunal.

Look into this.. i think its perfectly legal.Maybe its the answer.

Of course you can’t force the guy out, and nor should you; he’s a valued member of staff. Your aim is to retain him.

What you can get him to do is really examine whether his surface whinging is more than that. This is genuinely for his good as much as yours; you want a motivated member of staff, and by asking him whether there’s real substance to his complaint, you’ll get him to properly consider it. At this point it’s always a good idea to ask whether he’s started looking elsewhere; a lot of people are pretty honest, and will tell you that yes, they’ve seen something closer to home that pays the same….in which case their mind may already be made up.

You’ve already determined that his role has to be office based, and that you have no intention of paying him more, so you have to be aware that if he asks for either/both and you say no, you’re upping the stakes and making it more likely that he’ll go.

If he comes back and says that he really wants to go, so be it.

If he comes back and says he’s perfectly happy, no real issues, then ask him to stop the whinging, as it is unsettling, and anyway, he knew the terms when he joined. You should ask him how he feels, given that he’s been turned down for his requests.

It’s entirely proper for you, his employer, to enquire as to what his plans are, given that he’s said that he’s thinking of leaving; he raised this, not you, and you’re doing what any good employer should – engaging, rather than hiding your head in the sand as so many ‘managers’ do. The one thing you cannot do is ignore this.

Obviously, he could come back and say that everything’s fine, but then leave a month later. Fair enough, but you hold him to his notice period and prepare yourself to recruit in case this occurs. Get some CVs in to see what’s happening in the market, and see what it’ll cost you to replace.

As to whether you’d pay him redundancy or go down the compromise route…words fail me. He is the one who volunteered the information that he wants to resign. Why on earth would you consider paying someone for this?

I’ve emailed him a link to this thread. 🙂

Nckf -he is thinking of leaving due to petrol costs/travelling time, not a complaint.

And we aren’t trying to force him out either, just wanting to understand what our options are – we have never been in this position before.

And we aren’t trying to force him out work out how we can legally get rid of him either

FTFY

We are just trying to understand our options. And it appears to be clear that his announcement changes nothing so we can do nothing.

DD – from the OP

would we be legally able to then ask the original employee to leave

m-f

I take your points entirely, and am mostly responding to the other posts.

However, petrol costs aren’t going to go down, the office isn’t going to get any closer to his house, you don’t want to pay him any more and you want him in the office every day. Realistically, there’s only one outcome to this, isn’t there? And the sooner that both you and he get to the same conclusion, the better.

That way you are in control of the process, rather than hanging in limbo, as you seem to be at present. The obvious downside is that you’ll be precipitating some disruption in the office, whereas if you leave things you might get a few more months out of the guy.

so we can do nothing.

Amen to that.

To be honest, on an overnight reflection on this, it feels like the employee is just having a hissy fit and is doing the office equivalent of someone in a relationship threatening to leave unless they get what they want from their partner.

I still think you’d be better off employing a dirty young Czech or Polish girl in his place.

I actually agree Hora.

And we would supply the staff uniform 8)

I suspect it is a negotiation tactic. I suppose you could do a cost benefit analysis and decide their worth to you – recruitment costa nd down time are generally quite large.
Could he actually get another job in this climate? Could you recruit someone cheaper in this climate?
Game of Poker basically do you want to give in or call their bluff /risk him leaving.

walla24 has got something that could be lethal, and maybe hard to trace.
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/mould-testing-where

I don’t know if you are once again enjoying full conjectural rights but this young lady could also take up the slack in this area as well 😀

Mf how many salons do you own/operate?

Nickf wrote: “As to whether you’d pay him redundancy or go down the compromise route…words fail me. He is the one who volunteered the information that he wants to resign. Why on earth would you consider paying someone for this?”

mastiles wrote in the op: “but if, for example, we found someone who was ideal and wanted to employ them, would we be legally able to then ask the original employee to leave?”

Tell him you’re opening offices in Tunisia and you would like him go out there and sort it out….