Just remember this is you and them. Forget what others are doing or "getting away with". Know the policy and grievances procedures, have your evidence, take a rep/friend, take notes. Keep calm and work through the points they highlight, do not stray from them. Be impersonal.
Try and take the emotion out of it and treat it as a pure logic exercise. They are examining if your record is grounds for dismissal without payment of redundancy. Your job is to provide evidence that it isn't.
independent manager
From an external, non-affiliated company or from another office? If the latter he/she is not independent and will do what they have been told by HO.
I'd just go to your line manager's office beforehand and go full Fight Club
Secondly i have more than five instances (around 9 times in 12 months) of being late into work, my issue here is that often i am at work for 7.50am, but by the time i’ve logged into PC, and fired up the phone system that records this, it is 8.05am. I have asked if the card system we use to enter the building records actual time i arrive.
Where I’ve worked in the past with a card-based clocking in system, it’s been the case that employees were paid from that time.
I note the comments about it being automatically triggered, if it was fair i would not have an issue, my biggest issue is that there are far worse offenders, with no reason to be late.
Do you know that they haven't or won't be subjected to this procedure?
I used to work in a place where there were several people who were always late, often by just a few minutes. We had a "keying-in" system which produced reports for line managers. All these people had to do was to get up ten minutes earlier but it was some sort of psychological thing. It was a lot of grief for all involved - the system being inflexible and the people being unable to change their behaviour. Lots of excuses about unexpected happenings like traffic.
my biggest issue is that there are far worse offenders, with no reason to be late.
Don't say this. You are there to discuss your timing not throw others under the bus. It makes it seem like because you are not as bad as some, you're golden.
whether it be due to ... traffic
Rubbish reason. Set off earlier. I assume everyone else uses the same road? As a defence it will undermine your whole argument.
Isn't it funny how all these companies that slam you for being 5 minutes "late" or leaving 5 mins early, when you say "hey, I only had 5 mins for lunch cos I was on a call / replying to an urgent email" etc.... "your lunch is your responsibility".
Sounds like your place is just looking to half their staff by whatever means necessary. Of course, no organisations these days are top-heavy or over middle-management-ised are they....?
I think disciplinary record can be part of the selection criteria for compulsory/voluntary redundancy. Its not unknown for petty disciplines to be raised around redundancy time.
I don't know the process well enough to say if the following are accurate, but the disciplinary could affect the selection process and/or payments.
Could it prevent you being selected i.e. petty disciplinary secures your job
Could it mean you are more likely selected?
Or does it not affect the selection process, but does void out a voluntary payment at redundancy. i.e. cost reduction
Isn’t it funny how all these companies that slam you for being 5 minutes “late” or leaving 5 mins early, when you say “hey, I only had 5 mins for lunch cos I was on a call / replying to an urgent email” etc…. “your lunch is your responsibility”.
Oh, absolutely. I've worked at a couple of places where they'll be tapping their watch at 8:31am but gave no recognition to the fact that I was stuck on a call / outage till 7pm the previous day. The best advice I can give here is "don't work at those places," the last one actually made me ill both physically and mentally.
These days I'm old enough, cynical enough and grumpy enough to believe that the door swings both ways; my stance is "I'll work to rule if you want, but you won't like it." Fortunately I'm lucky enough to be measured on output rather than time and I have a very generous flexi-time agreement. I started work at 10am this morning because I had a rough night's sleep due to the heat; on Friday I started at 6am because I happened to wake up early. So long as I don't take the piss then my boss couldn't care less, and it's amazing how much stress that removes.
Take a shit in management's drawer before the meeting.
How did it go Op?
Bump for a result
cougar - your example there is plenty you can do as they are breaching WTD
Still bumping for a result.
There is plenty you can do as they are breaching WTD
Hahahahah
The WTD is a joke and easily worked around. If there isn’t already an opt out in your contract then as soon as you kick off they’ll start the procedure to alter you contract or find a reason to fire you.
I was asked to sign an optout of WTD when I joined my current company, I said don't be silly i'm not signing that. HR didn't bat an eyelid. Never heard anything about it since.
Utter bollox rayban. Its easily enforcable and what you say would be immidate unfair dismissal with no defense possible by the company. Much of WTD you cannot opt out of. 11 hours between shifts being one
cougar – your example there is plenty you can do as they are breaching WTD
There is now. Back where I'm referring to, either the WTD didn't exist or it was so new that I'd never heard of it.
Fair enough
No update from Scud probably isn't good news, if he's like the 95% of us that only access the forum whilst at work...
11 hours between shifts being one
Yet loads of nurses routinely do ‘late-earlies’ And no one bats an eyelid... 😏
late to early has now been changed everywhere I know to make the 11 hours off between shifts. Used to be 2-10 and 7-3. and night shift was 9 hours Its now 12-8 and 7-3 usually with night shift 12 hours. I bet you don't find a single one that does not have 11 hours off between shifts
Most nurse do condensed hours anyway - 3x13 hrs
Utter bollox rayban. Its easily enforcable and what you say would be immidate unfair dismissal with no defense possible by the company
Only if you’ve been in the company for more than two years. Again, doesn’t apply to much of the private sector as there is more of a culture of having to move to get a promotion. Staying at a company for less than two years is now fairly normal.
Bullshine.
being made to work outside the WTD does not need a two year qualification to take action. any dismissal because you took action would be automatically an unfair dismissal and again you would not need the two year qualification.
Sure some folk have stockholm syndrome but these laws are there to protect us and can be easily enforced.
tj you are absolutely technically correct. However you are also completely wrong. Youd have to prove your dismissal was due to WTD abuse, the employer could come up with plenty of other plausible reasons. Even if you win, payouts arent great. In reality employment law doesnt really support employees. Until awards are punitive some employers will continue to behave as they see fit.
any dismissal because you took action would be automatically an unfair dismissal
True. Proving it might be tricky, however.
Easy enough to prove but you are right in general that tribunal awards are too low. However cases like this can lead to greater sanctions. Criminal offenses may well have occured
Penalties for breaches of the regulations can be high
Breaches of working time limits can lead to improvement notices being issued. Subsequent failure to comply can lead to unlimited fines and imprisonment.
Employment tribunals can order appropriate compensation payments (limited to £86,444 where there has been an unfair dismissal).
being made to work outside the WTD does not need a two year qualification to take action. any dismissal because you took action would be automatically an unfair dismissal and again you would not need the two year qualification.
As others have said - good luck proving this in court.
Any corporate that knew what it was doing would manage you out on capability grounds and claim they didn't know a thing about the overtime you were doing and state that it wasn't approved.
Done it a few times - usually ending up in big payoffs under compromise agreements. Personally I got £7000 out of a private company for unfair dismissal when redundancy would have cost them £400! I have never met a competent HR person.
Plenty of cases have been brought under WTD and won - it doesn't matter if the overtime is approved or not. Its the companies responsibility to ensure you work within the WTD. Case law on this.
Bad case of stockholm syndrome? You forget both me and my other half have a lot of experience of making claims for unfair / illegal working practices.
The only thing they need to say that they thought you were working within the limits is your payroll statement.
Unless you are paid hourly there is no requirement to time keep other than that.
Don't take this personally, but there's a huge difference between the HR departments of a private healthcare firm and a big bank in London.
Looks like the law on record keeping might have changed https://www.hrlawlive.co.uk/working-time/
But only back in May of this year!
So things might change, but I know so many people doing well over the 48 hours so they can get all their work done. Doing 9 hour days, eating at their pcs, checking email as soon as they get up, finishing work remotely in the evening. It's endemic in some industries TJ.
Yet loads of nurses routinely do ‘late-earlies’ And no one bats an eyelid…
The (city based) trust I work for doesn't allow this, neither does the county trust nor the neighbouring trusts.
Done it a few times – usually ending up in big payoffs under compromise agreements. Personally I got £7000 out of a private company for unfair dismissal when redundancy would have cost them £400! I have never met a competent HR person.
You also have to consider that in many industries, they are small enough and connected enough that if you piss off enough people by taking a couple of companies to tribunal - you'll never work in that field again.
Again, TJ, it's easy to say these things when you work in one of if not the largest sector in the UK.
There also clear banding and progression routes within healthcare, that encourages working to rule as well. If progression in your industry relies on brown nosing select jerks, then fighting these battles is much harder.
Much of WTD you cannot opt out of. 11 hours between shifts being one
I bet you don’t find a single one that does not have 11 hours off between shifts
our 'union negotiated shift pattern' bypasses this. our shift pattern of 4 on/4 off/4 on/4 off/5 on/3 off also includes night cover between shifts, so we go to every call out within a 96 or 120 hour period. obviously you cant guarantee an 11 hour period off doing this, so they get around it by giving us 'compensatory rest' if we have a busy night. but that also gets broken into with the next call-out, so what we end up with is an 'average' 11 hours off.
ROFLMAO
See, there are some very cheeky and creative HR teams out there.
. but that also gets broken into with the next call-out, so what we end up with is an ‘average’ 11 hours off.
Thats pretty dubious. I wonder what a court / tribunal would make of that. What do you do? YOur compensatory rest should not be interfered with. would it stand up in court? Essential services do get a little more leeway. Depends to an extent the level of callouts - 3 x a night is somewhat different to once every few weeks
What do you do?
fire service
Depends to an extent the level of callouts – 3 x a night is somewhat different to once every few weeks
it can be anything from 4 or 5, to none.
fire service - its almost impossible to make a rota that actually meets wtd and is acceptable to the staff. Its even worse than junior medics.
We have a voluntary contractual call out (voluntary in that you opt in and give notice to opt out) with a retainer. WTD states that those on contractual emergency callout can break the 11hr rest into two shorter breaks...I don't think its a grey area...although averaging several shifts and callouts over several days probably is. And of course after midnight, the individual can choose to take OT, make up their rest hours and then come in late for the next daytime shift, or take part of it at non-overtime rate and it comes off the day shift. i.e. callout at 10pm to 5am. 5hrs rest before, then 4hrs rest after, good to work from 9am. Or, 2 hours OT, then midnight to 5am is normal pay (+ night rate), take a 'lunch' breakfast break, then work another 4 hours and finish at 9:40am. The guys always take the OT and do a full day shift!
Yet loads of nurses routinely do ‘late-earlies’ And no one bats an eyelid…
The (city based) trust I work for doesn’t allow this, neither does the county trust nor the neighbouring trusts.
Our Trust won’t allow this either.
Typically Hospital based Nurses work 12.5 hour shifts 3 days a week so they’re cutting it fine if you do 2 days on the bounce, but you’d never do for example a Sunday Night and Monday Day, partly because you’d end up working 24.5 hours in one go and partly because the shifts over-lap to allow for hand-over. If you work a day/night rota there’s always 2 clear days between.
Typically Hospital based Nurses work 12.5 hour shifts 3 days a week so they’re cutting it fine if you do 2 days on the bounce...
At our trust you can be rostered in for 3 nights in a row (2000 - 0730) but they prefer not to roster in staff 3 Long Days (0730 - 2000) in a row.
Of course if you choose to work Bank shifts as well all manner of shifts can be worked, though they have to be at least 11 hours apart.
3 rostered nights with 5 Bank nights tacked on the end is my 'record' so far. When Bank pays mid-scale Band 7 pay it's hard to turn it down!
The (city based) trust I work for doesn’t allow this, neither does the county trust nor the neighbouring trusts.
Fair doos, things must have moved on. It’s been a few years since I last dated a nurse, which is from where my experience of this was obtained. They were definitely late to the 11hr break party though; I thought at the time it was iffy.
Fair doos, things must have moved on.
A fair bit has changed since the Francis Report came out.
Unfortunately much hasn't though.
