Holidays and disciplinaries

[vagrantbrain]

Hi all,

A few months ago my GF started a job working for an advertising company selling adverts - she's just come back from holiday to find she's been given a verbal warning for not hitting her targets for the month. Turns out the company policy is that you must hit the target of £x every single month or automatically get a verbal warning. This seems wrong to me as you can't surely be expected to do a full months work in 2 weeks, especially when the company have authorised the other 2 weeks as annual leave. She's really upset by it and stressed as shes got a holiday planned for half term and now she's worried that she'll get disciplined again for taking the paid holiday she'll have accrued. What I also found unsettling was that was that they have offered to revoke the warning next month if she hits her target that month, however they've moved her into cold-calling customers for the month which has a much lower success rate but still has the same financial target. My advice to her was that it's borderline bullying and they are a poor employer if they think that's acceptable and she should get something else, however she loved the job until she went on holiday.

Any thoughts on this?

I've asked her to find out what happens in December as the office is closed over xmas and most of the customers will also be on leave, can't see them giving the entire sales staff verbal warnings every xmas...

[Itsallaguess]

I've asked her to find out what happens in December as the office is closed over xmas and most of the customers will also be on leave, can't see them giving the entire sales staff verbal warnings every xmas...

Surely they've got to?

I'm not for one minute condoning the practice, but at the very least I'd have thought that they have to be seen to be consistent with such a policy, unless there's written terms that state otherwise?

Was she clearly informed of this policy during the application or interview stage?

If such 'warnings' might eventually lead to them being able to let people go, then I'd suggest being able to point to inconsistent use of such a policy would leave the company wide open to criticism, so I'd be surprised if they don't use such a policy all the time...

I'm not condoning it by the way - I think it's a terrible policy in an awful industry, but I only think it's an awful industry because I know of similar situations to this - I imagine their staff-turnover is both high and persistent....

Not a great suggestion, I know, given the personal implications, but I would seriously suggest that she starts to look for other work.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[pochisoldi]

Hi all,

A few months ago my GF started a job working for an advertising company selling adverts - she's just come back from holiday to find she's been given a verbal warning for not hitting her targets for the month. Turns out the company policy is that you must hit the target of £x every single month or automatically get a verbal warning. This seems wrong to me as you can't surely be expected to do a full months work in 2 weeks, especially when the company have authorised the other 2 weeks as annual leave. She's really upset by it and stressed as shes got a holiday planned for half term and now she's worried that she'll get disciplined again for taking the paid holiday she'll have accrued. What I also found unsettling was that was that they have offered to revoke the warning next month if she hits her target that month, however they've moved her into cold-calling customers for the month which has a much lower success rate but still has the same financial target. My advice to her was that it's borderline bullying and they are a poor employer if they think that's acceptable and she should get something else, however she loved the job until she went on holiday.

Any thoughts on this?

I've asked her to find out what happens in December as the office is closed over xmas and most of the customers will also be on leave, can't see them giving the entire sales staff verbal warnings every xmas...

Off the top of my head...

They are lining themselves up for an industrial tribunal, as it is quite clear that the consequences of their policy is to persuade an employee not to take their annual leave entitlement are contrary to the intention of the regulations.

I would also expect the shysters to hide behind the regulations and refuse to pay out for untaken statutory entitlement at the end of the holiday year.

PochiSoldi

[pochisoldi]

Okey dokey.

First thing - Cock up or conspiracy?

Cock up -
(1) The interpretation of the company policy, and the issuing of verbal warnings is being done by a supervisor who knows less than their employees do about the law.
(2) If HR (specifically the "We stop the management from wasting money by breaking employment law" section) found out they would probably stamp it out.
(3) "The management" don't realise that they are technically falling foul of the rules.
(4) "The management" probably don't realise that they have to factor in bonuses and commission when paying holiday pay (http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4109), and allowing their supervisor to issue verbal warnings will probably push an employee to make a claim for illegal pay deductions as well as a claim regarding annual leave.

Conspiracy -
They actively don't want you to take annual leave.

My money is on the former. Any approach to the employer should be on that basis that an honest mistake has been/is being made, and lets sort this out sooner rather than later.

The legislation is the Working Time Regulations 1998. The relevant bit doesn't appear to have been amended:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998 ... on/31/made

Right not to suffer detriment

31.—(1) After section 45 of the 1996 Act there shall be inserted—
“Working time cases.

45A.—(1) A worker has the right not to be subjected to any detriment by any act, or any deliberate failure to act, by his employer done on the ground that the worker—
(a)refused (or proposed to refuse) to comply with a requirement which the employer imposed (or proposed to impose) in contravention of the [S.I. 1998/1833] Working Time Regulations 1998,
(b)refused (or proposed to refuse) to forgo a right conferred on him by those Regulations,
(c)failed to sign a workforce agreement for the purposes of those Regulations, or to enter into, or agree to vary or extend, any other agreement with his employer which is provided for in those Regulations,
(d)being—
(i)a representative of members of the workforce for the purposes of Schedule 1 to those Regulations, or
(ii)a candidate in an election in which any person elected will, on being elected, be such a representative,
performed (or proposed to perform) any functions or activities as such a representative or candidate,
(e)brought proceedings against the employer to enforce a right conferred on him by those Regulations, or
(f)alleged that the employer had infringed such a right.

(2) It is immaterial for the purposes of subsection (1)(e) or (f)—
(a)whether or not the worker has the right, or
(b)whether or not the right has been infringed,
but, for those provisions to apply, the claim to the right and that it has been infringed must be made in good faith.

(3) It is sufficient for subsection (1)(f) to apply that the worker, without specifying the right, made it reasonably clear to the employer what the right claimed to have been infringed was.

I would suggest the following:

1) Appeal any verbal warning, pointing out the Working Time Regulations
2) If the appeal fails, (or if there is no commitment to stop dishing out warnings), raise a grievance, again pointing out S31 of the WTR.
3) If the grievance is rejected, or there are threats to dismiss, contact ACAS to initiate the Early Conciliation process
4) If the early conciliation process fails, take the matter to a tribunal

Personally I would consider dismissal from a place of work like that to be a blessing, prepare for it by measuring and recording your own performance while at work, and look for somewhere where annual leave is properly treated as a right, and slave driving is frowned upon.

You can use the "I was dismissed from my last job because although I hit my sales targets for every week I worked, I complained that the company policy stopped me from taking annual leave." statement at an interview to filter out the [expletive deleted] employers.

You don't want to work for an organisation where the interviewer thinks "Troublemaker" rather than "Willing to challenge unfairness"/"Does the right thing"/"Has principles".

PochiSoldi

PS: Hopefully Mel will be along soon to impart her HR expertise...

[dionaeamuscipula]

I will bet you a fiver that employees are opted out of the WTR.

The sort of behaviour the company are exhibiting is so unreasonable that I don't think it can be anything other than deliberate.

My ex-brother in law has sold time share and they were more reasonable.

DM

[vagrantbrain]

Thanks for all the replies - i've passed those on to my GF. Just to confirm, it was the owner of the business who issued the verbal warning so someone who should know better.

Shame really as she loved the job and was doing very well but I think she's realised its time to move on.

[Clitheroekid]

Unfortunately, it's all too typical of the ordure that so many modern employers dump on their employees. I'm surprised they haven't told her that as from next month she'll be classed as self-employed, with the right to rent her desk and headset!

But now that trade unions have been effectively destroyed in the non-public sector workplace, and as you have to be employed for two years before you obtain any really effective rights of redress for such unfair treatment there's not much she can do about it.

Though thinking about it, perhaps she should tell them she intends to set up a trade union `shop' where she works. The cretins she works for will probably just sack her for her impertinence, thinking they can safely behave like thugs for the first two years.

However, she can then bring an unfair dismissal claim as there is no minimum time that you have to have been employed if the dismissal was for trade union related activities.

Even better, she'd be virtually certain to win, as such a dismissal is deemed automatically unfair.