Firing staff

Firing somebody for petty theft is a bit extreme.

Sounds like he just doesn’t know how to behave in the workplace. Or in public sector speak – he is lacking in the Impact on Others and Self Awareness competencies.

Some people grow up in terrible homes, maybe nobody ever told him this was wrong. Tell him exactly why what he is doing is stealing, and why that is wrong, and the potential consequences. Use small words.

Good luck !

even from someone who underwrites employment law !

😀

Would you take engineering advice from someone that insures cars?

What would Alan Sugar do?

What would Alan Sugar do?

Excellent advice.
Phone him at 5:30 a.m, have him meet you at 5.40a.m in a bizarre location ,Sit the lad down, make a face like Sid James bawbag, patronize the boy with some shit puns and some stories about how rich you are, point it him in a vaguely threatening manner to build a bit of dramatic tension , give him a final warning and then send him on a “treat experience”.

That should do it.

I suspect the OP’s problem is going to be lack of evidence.

My advice is get yourself some CCTV and a box of Ferrero Rocher and wait for the bee to come to the honey.

What would Alan Sugar do?

Sack him by email?

April fools day joke, I assume

STM – you’re forgetting the crucial singletrackworld liberal minded woolly life is rainbows and unicorns mentality… Where you can be stolen from and give the culprit a big smile and hug them for having a harder life than you..it is therefore you who is to blame… Not doing a simple job properly is the fault of training and therefore the manager’s fault.
It’s not a world I’ve lived in either.

He’d never get it 🙂

Dez

hiring and firing costs money and management time for an issue that could be dealt with with a 2 minute conversation.

No unicorns were harmed in the drafting of this rebuttal.

There’s a significant piece of evidence* the OP isn’t telling us…

Did he leave the discarded sweetie wrappers in the container?

Yes … sacking too good for him… give him death by a thousand cuts

No … He’s clearly not all bad and should be given a chance

Unlike me, who takes great delight in leaving the wrappers to pee off the Mrs/MiL 😈

*apart from the fact that the OP got he’s got sod all in the way of evidence anyway

It’s not a world I’ve lived in either.

Well, that world may well be dead and buried now – if you look at a lot of recent legal changes re discrimination and generally trying to prevent abuse of power you may find that that old world is largely being rejected.

Emotional intelligence is increasingly valued in organisations – lack of it has a distinct habit of hitting the bottom line as productivity drops when motivated employees lose energy and the best employees leave for an employer who has the sense to treat them like a human being. Stress from lousy management imposed a massive cost on the NHS and welfare costs at a time when we can least afford it.

The Millennials appear (rightly or wrongly) to be focussing on this so this change will come about whether you like it or not.

Take it from me, being sacked on the basis of someone else’s assumption that you’ve done something wrong or simply and inadvertently breached their values will do enormous damage to that individual, their self-confidence, career progression and lifetime earnings… being a manager and the power and authority you’re given is a great responsibility, not something to be abused.

btw I’m a dirty right-wing capitalist, having worked in financial services marketing for 20 years, not some wet behind the ears liberal 🙂

Tribunal. He CANNOT tale you to an employment tribuneral over his sacking, assuming it comes to that.

Take it from me, being sacked on the basis of someone else’s assumption that you’ve done something wrong or simply and inadvertently breached their values will do enormous damage to that individual, their self-confidence, career progression and lifetime earnings… being a manager and the power and authority you’re given is a great responsibility, not something to be abused.

+1

And sacking someone over a tin of sweets is about as pathetic as it gets.

Sweets lying about – fair game. Any property stolen from a locked locker – sacking is deserved.

I worked in a place once where there was a petty thief. I had a tape stolen out my locker. Other stuff including cash was stolen. Nothing of great value but theft is theft. Never found out who it was and it left a bad taste about an otherwise good place with only 16 or 20 people working there.

There are those who are bemoaning the liberal attitudes that prevent a manager from escorting a suspected miscreant off site and into unemployment would do well to consider that proper procedure is intended to guarantee fairness.

Putting an employee into a situation where they are lined up to fail and therefore be subject to a disciplinary isn’t cricket, neither is disciplining an employee who hasn’t been properly trained. I’ve had conversations with employers who’ve expressed dismay at the regulations for not being able to constructively dismiss an employee in her eighth month of pregnancy who “wasn’t pulling her weight”. I’ve also been asked to find a reason to find fault with someone who had their card marked because they lodged a formal complaint about a cramped and dangerous workplace.

Any employee is allowed reasonable notice of a pending investigation and is allowed to nominate representation at a subsequent meeting. You wouldn’t think a Kangaroo Court to be fair, would you?

On the flipside, following proper procedure protects the employer from subsequent legal action and will document that the manager responsible for initiating the disciplinary has done so for legitimate reasons. I’ve known several employers who’ve fired or taken other disciplinary action against an employee for very good reasons, but due to a failure to follow best practice have left themselves wide open to subsequent action.

While you may well get away with “It’s not working out, pack your things and go, we’ll pay you to the end of the week”, it may also come back to bite you on the arse in six months time.

Most places i’ve worked it’s been pretty explicit.

Open someone elses locker without express permission from the owner (maybe they left a tin of sweets for you or something).
Alternatively you’ve needed security, and management, and the union AND the owner in attendance (or a combination of them).

Don’t meet either of these requirements, cheerio. See you at tribunal, if you can find a lawyer or union daft enough to support you.

If only the OP had some actual proof.

Take it from me, being sacked on the basis of someone else’s assumption that you’ve done something wrong or simply and inadvertently breached their values will do enormous damage to that individual, their self-confidence, career progression and lifetime earnings… being a manager and the power and authority you’re given is a great responsibility, not something to be abused

Heartbreaking

btw I’m a dirty right-wing capitalist, having worked in financial services marketing for 20 years, not some wet behind the ears liberal

I am a senior Harpoonist on a Japanese whaler, you seem like a bit of a neolib to me 😉

Don’t listen to these bleaters. Far from over-reacting, you’re not being tough enough. How is he supposed to learn.

He’s eaten your mini eggs. He must feel the full force of your vengeful wrath!

Kill him and bury his body in a shallow grave on the moors

im sure the standard STW solution for this contains PICOLAX

I struggle with long sentences, but it would appear that he’s stolen the apostrophe key off your keyboard…

Sack the thieving little b*****d!

Many years ago a bloke on my Dad’s building site used to nick the slice of chocolate cake my mum used to bake – from his lunchbox.

So one day my dad got my mum to make a cake with Ex-Lax. The guy nicked the cake as usual but ended up in a bad way.

A few days later my mum was washing up and gave an almighty scream from the kitchen whilst doing the washing up. She’d opened the lunchbox to wash it. Someone had put a live mouse in the empty lunchbox!

You’re not actually taking responsibility for him at all if you sack him for minor things which breach your personal values – that’s more like victimising him than taking responsibility for it yourself.

Taking responsibility would be treating him like an adult and having a face to face chat with him about all the issues and giving him right to reply – and listening to it properly, without judgement and without prejudice. And I mean listen – say absolutely nothing whilst he talks…

Show him some leadership and you may find him an awesome employee. Sack him and you teach him that managers will use their power irresponsibly, which will become his long term problem he’s likely to carry around for years and hold his career back.

I’m afraid it shows that you lack management experience but I’ll give you this – you’ve thought enough about it to come on here and engage with those who’ve criticised you for your approach. That suggests you are actually thinking about the negative consequences for this lad of your actions – do more of that before you sack him please.

Oh, and have a word with your employer about giving you some management training. I’ve seen so many weak managers over the years wreck people’s work lives because the manager was given line management responsibility without any training… so please make this your employer’s responsibility to support you too.

Good luck… I’m sure this isn’t pleasant

Amen.

I’ve seen so many weak managers over the years wreck people’s work lives because the manager was given line management responsibility without any training…

^ Definitely this. I could easily flood this thread with personal experiences where this has happened, by individuals who aren’t in themselves necessarily evil or malevolent, but their subsequent actions have destroyed morale, productivity and ultimately damaged the reputation of their employer. Of course, by that time it’s always some other buggers’ fault.

neither is disciplining an employee who hasn’t been properly trained.

How much training is needed to know that theft from a locked locker is wrong?

How much training is needed to know that theft from a locked locker is wrong?

I was talking in a general sense. If you’d read the rest of the thread, you’d have understood quite plainly that the OP has no actual proof that the employee in question was thieving from a locker, other than circumstantial evidence.

No proof apart from evidence? 😀

No proof apart from evidence

evidence of theft =/= evidence that he stole.

So? Has this lad been awarded the DCM* yet?

*Don’t Come Monday

I used to share an office with some old stagers. I was frequently out of the office and while I was out one of the older geezers used to pinch my tea bags.

To get around this, I locked them in a drawer.

True Story.

ScottChegg used to share an office with some old stagers. He was frequently out of the office and while he was out one of the older geezers used to pinch his tea bags.

To get around this, he locked them in a drawer.

ScottChegg used to share an office with some old stagers. He was frequently out of the office and while he was out one of the older geezers used to knob his teacup.

True Story.

Wwaswas you’re my wife now

I’m with Binners, he’s my partner but also my lover

Percypanther makes I laugh – true story. 🙂

while I was out one of the older geezers used to pinch my tea bags.

To get around this, I locked them in a drawer.

Harsh. When did you let the old geezers back out again?

My wallet lives in my locker , so where does it end?

Sorry, I’m just weighing in now, so this may have been covered, BUT…

I have indulged in other people’s chocolates before, and even pilfered some coffee I know didn’t belong to me, but it wouldn’t even dawn on me to look at someone else’s wallet, never mind take something from it!

There may be a principle somewhere in there, but surely it can’t be that a thief is a thief. I suspect that most people have a built-in line in their head between frivolous ‘theft’ and actual, substantial theft.

I can see having a chat with the poor guy – maybe even giving him a warning (although I would think even that is too strong) – but firing him?!? Goodness, I’m not sure I would want to work for you!

This thread contains all kinds of win. I’d doctor some sweets, make everyone but the lad aware and await results …. then fire him.

You could fire him out of a cannon?

STM, what he has done is totally wrong and its certainly NOT on to take someones keys to help yourself. You seem pretty sure that it’s him thats carrying out the thieving, but you really need to have cast iron proof, not just suspicions.
However, you need to follow due process in order to protect both yourself AND your employer from this person filing for unfair dismissal etc. There needs to be verbal warnings (with a representative of the person accused), written warnings and final warnings before you can bin someone.
There is good advice given by others in the thread please take it!

Kill him and bury his body in a shallow grave on the moors

no no no….you must dissolve his dead body with the acid at work!

I’m with Binners, he’s my partner but also my lover

i know what these 2 look like….now thats an image i cant get out of my head…ohhhh the trauma!!