Investigation at work.

[Sheff4steel]

Hello everyone and thanks for allowing me access.

Today I received a letter from my employers regarding an investigation because in their words, I refused a reasonable request from a senior manager to carry out a task.

The senior manager instructed me to cover a shift in a female only staffed service, which supports females, whom may have addictions, mental health problems, fled domestic violence, rape, assault etc. All job vacancies for this particular service comes under Equality Act 2010, Schedule 9, Paragraph 1. No male staff.

The contract for this particular service is through the local authority.

I am a male with 15 years experience in Health&Social Care and I my argument is this is an unreasonable request/ bad practice.

I am a night shift Coordinator and oversee homeless services in different locations around Glasgow for a private company.

Any advice where to start would be much appreciated.

[seduraed]

I would speak to your union. You are in a union, aren't you? Perhaps speak to ACAS and ask for their help.

[ULA]

Has your employer said how the investigation will be conducted? Are you still working or have you been suspended whilst the investigation is carried out?

My experience is based on English/Welsh employment legislation but there are very few differences for employment contracts in Scotland so we should be able to help you.

[Sheff4steel]

I would speak to your union. You are in a union, aren't you? Perhaps speak to ACAS and ask for their help.

Hi and thanks for the reply.

I had a brief chat with ACAS yesterday. They advised me to get back in touch with them after the meeting because at this stage of the investigation it should be informal, to gather information.The investigation meeting is set for next Tuesday, via WhatsApp video call, due to CORVID-19.

Oh, I am not in a union.

[Sheff4steel]

Has your employer said how the investigation will be conducted? Are you still working or have you been suspended whilst the investigation is carried out?

My experience is based on English/Welsh employment legislation but there are very few differences for employment contracts in Scotland so we should be able to help you.

Hi and thanks for your reply.

I have not been suspended. There is actually another 5 of my male staff who also refused the request and also subject to their own investigation. They also are still working with no suspensions.

Its a the earliest stage, first letter of invite. One line manager will carry out the investigation. The letter doesn’t say whether it’s informal or formal meeting.

Thanks.

[ULA]

Thanks for providing further information which is really useful.

The meeting you have been invited to as part of the investigation should be to find out your version of what happened and in this case your reasons for not complying with the request. Given the circumstances it seems like you need to point out that the nature of the request was not in fact reasonable, given that you are male and you were being required to go into an environment with very vulnerable females and for which as a result the staff are all female. This is supported by the fact that any vacancies that arise are covered under the Equality Act in that only females are recruited.

Prepare yourself some notes in advance, always good to have done this.

If you have any further questions before Tues pop back to this thread, if not please come back and update us how you get on.