Abuse of disciplinary procedure?

[el_geos]

I work for a small company. I was invited to a disciplinary hearing by management and charged with gross misconduct (for things like leaving my laptop alone (but locked!) at work to grab lunch, and not following covid guidance). This was VERY surprising, as the company has never operated like this before; any wrongdoing would be approached via informal dialogue (not that there was any wrongdoing before). I believe this formality and strictness has come from a new director, who loves bureaucracy and discipline. Anyway, It was written in my hearing invite that I could be dismissed as one of the outcomes. This made me feel sick to the core, given all the hard work I’ve done for the company over 5 years.

After the dust settled on this ordeal (from which I received a first warning), I spoke to management and HR afterwards who told me (on a couple of separate occasions) that the disciplinary against me wasn’t really for the reasons laid out above, but was actually to tackle perceived rebellious and insubordinate behaviour* from me over the last few months. This is a massive leap and not entirely a fair judgement on me. I believe these actual reasons weren’t black & white enough for them to try me for formally, so they latched onto other minor (but more prove-able) events.

Were my bosses wrong here? Are they allowed to put me through a disciplinary process for reasons that weren’t the actual reasons? Keep in mind HR guided and consulted them the whole time. The whole thing caused me great anxiety for months.

*members of my team had fairly asked for salary increases which upset the directors. I didn’t, but was in the same team, so ‘guilty’ by association. They see the team I work in as difficult.

[ULA]

Is any of the background from your previous thread of any relevance to the current situation?

An invitation to a disciplinary hearing must contain details of the allegations for which they need to provide any evidence they are going to use at the meeting was this done? They provided details of what the potential outcome could be at the most "highest level" even if the actual outcome is less severe.

If things have been lax in the past and a new director or manager comes in then often this can lead to a "readjustment" of how things have previously operatated.

A disciplinary process should not take months to conduct so not sure what you mean when you say "The whole thing caused me great anxiety for months."

Your only course of action is potentially to raise a grievance but i think you need to consider this carefully.