Toxic Personality

[euphoria]

Hi Folks
I have run my own business for almost 13 years. We have an employee who is causing issues - in her third month she accused my business partner of bullying her - I’ve known him for over 20 years and this isn’t a word anyone who knows him would associate with him. She has upset members of staff, argued about holiday entitlement, argued about her hourly rate, and today has told me I shouldn’t be using the bin in one of the surgeries after it has been emptied. The dentist in that surgery finishes at 5.30 and I go in to see other patients until 8. She is making mountains out of molehills and my business partner is on anti-anxiety medication for the first time in his life - I can’t help feeling there’s a link. obviously we can’t just sack someone but does anyone have any suggestions how we can get our sanity back? She’s manipulative, dramatic and sweats the small stuff to the point of creating problems where there weren’t any before.
thank you

[ULA]

Can I just ask a couple of questions:

1. How long have you employed this person?
2. Do they have a contract of employment?
3. Are they a permanent, full time employee?
4. Have you spoken to them about their behaviour in the past and if so how have you conducted this process?

[euphoria]

Hi - yes - this person has been employed full time, on a permanent contract, since May 2019. we have spoken to them about their behaviour but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. These have generally been in face to face meetings. In the time she’s been with us, she has been considerably late on 11 occasions. She has had 7 days off sick, plus other days when she has left early as her child has been sick. The practice have switched entire periods of annual leave for her as she changed her holiday dates after initial approval. The practice also allowed her repeated time away in many attempts to pass a driving test. She is now complaining about another couple of our staff members, as well as telling me that I shouldn’t be putting clinical waste in the clinical waste bin, and domestic waste in the domestic waste bin. Apparently litter in bins “annoys her and makes her really mad”. It’s at the point where we feel we can’t say anything because she twists things round and becomes the “victim” and accuses my business partner of bullying her.Thank you for your reply.

[ULA]

In theory since the individual has less than 2 year service then you can fairly dismiss without any reason. However, there are exceptions to the general rule on qualifying service and there are other claims linked to dismissal which have no qualifying service requirements. Therefore, what you will need to do is consider the following key exceptions which arise most frequently:

1. Is the dismissal discriminatory?
2. Is the dismissal for making a protected disclosure i.e. a "whistleblowing" complaint?
3. Is the dismissal for a health and safety reason?
4. Has the individual asserted a statutory right?
5. Is the employee a trade union representative?
6. Do you have a contractual disciplinary policy?

There are other exceptions to the service requirement, however from your post I am not sure that these would apply.

I would suggest that best practice in dismissing a member of staff with less than 2 years’ service is to follow some form of disciplinary process as follow:

1. Invite them in writing to a formal disciplinary meeting and give them an indication of why they have been invited to the meeting. Advise them that this meeting might result in their dismissal. Give them the right to be accompanied. Advise that they will have an opportunity to respond to what is said. Give them at least 3 days in which to prepare for the meeting.
2. After the meeting, adjourn for at least 30 minutes to demonstrate you are considering the situation and did not reach a conclusion before they had a chance to respond.
3. Reconvene and formally notify them of their dismissal. Confirm this in writing and give them the right to appeal within 5 days. Remember the person hearing any appeal should not be the person who carried out the disciplinary hearing.


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[ULA]

Also just moved your thread to different forum area. Although it is employment as the owner/employer thought the thread would be better in this forum area.*

[euphoria]

Thank you for this advice - I’ll pass on to my business partner. Appreciate your time.*

[ULA]

If you have any other questions then please just pop back to this thread.