Letter of Authority

[darrell]

Hi, This was a letter of authority given to a large company by an employee with learning difficulties in order to allow a friend to contact the company when ever the employee didn't understand something etc.

I xxx GIVES PERMISSION FOR MY FREIND yyy TO HAVE AUTHORITY TO SPEAK ON MY BEHALF REGARDING ANY MATTER CONCERNING MYSELF AND HUGE COMPANY LTD.

Is this open to abuse being so broad and if it was abused by yyy expressing her own opinions or derogatory comments and allegations what can you do? Regards Darrell

[atticus]

Darrell, if yyy cannot be trusted to be sensible then she should not be given this authority. If what you describe is happening, consider revoking yyy authority.

[darrell]

Many thanks Atticus, you as always have been really helpful. One more thing on this if i may.

Its difficult to convey what happened but i will try.

Yyy has helped xxx from time to time with wage related things and overtime etc , in communications with his Line Manager ZZZ. More usually xxc would just go to zzz at work with these problems and zzz would sort them out.. ZZZ , xxx and yyy .had a good working , and mutually supporting relationship. This continued for about a year and half. Xxx was employed to work 2 days a week for the company.

A letter of Authorisation was never sought at any time., yyy was just helping as a supportive friend that the previous Manager to zzz had allowed. On taking over zzzwas aware of this arrangement

An event happened where xxx texted ZZZ ( xxx was not working this day but zzz was) ` i cant talk i will talk later`. This was taken as it read. Later that evening at home zzz received a text from yyy asking him to ring xxx. ZZZ rang xxx and discovered xxx was unwell and could not open the shop the next day. Zzz was explaining to xxx about better communication with this, as he would now have to find cover for the next day.

The phone was hijacked by yyy and a negative conversation took place. Because of this zzz asked her in what official capacity can you take the phone from my employee ,xxx, whilst discussing simple work related issues?.

Zzz emailed his Area Manager this event and also emailed HR to ask if there was any official Documentation for yyy in her capacity as support.
Nothing was held in that name on xxx's Employment record.

This zzz also conveyed to his Area Manager. Within a few days zzz Area Manager informed zzz a letter of Authorisation had been received by HR. Zzz never had any communications from HR about the authorisation or any of the events that were about to happen.

During all the detail i`m about to give , xxx came to work as if nothing was going on and ZZZ and xxx weekly relationship never changed.

Immediately after xxx gave HR authorisation, yyy over the course of 2 months started emailing and calling zzz Area Manager with criticisms , allegations and derogatory comments about zzz as a Manager and in regards to his treatment of xxx. Not limiting it to that, the emails tried to implicate zzz and the shop with H&S concerns ( xxx even took photos of things when working alone) this was then put in an email by yyy and sent to zzz area manager. ( None of the photos were official shop H&S concerns, perhaps maybe the photo of a full wastepaper bin.)

The emails and calls made by yyy to zzz Area Manager also tried to implicate other work colleagues for various alleged wrong doings.
Zzz Area Manager showed zzz a couple of the emails and basically started to pander to yyy and even used them to lambast ZZZ ,regardless of explanation. Zzz all through this asked His Area Manager to get HR involved something is wrong here .. This did not happen. Other requests were to have someone from HR interview xxx and Possibly yyy about this. The Area Manager ignored this.

Throughout this 2 month period zzz was getting more anxious about these emails and communications. This was on top of a heavy workload. Many times he approached his area manager to confirm the HR will investigate this. Sometimes he was told he was being Paranoid.

Finally there was an unrelated meeting between The Area Manager and ZZZ. During this meeting the Area Manager bought up some shop wide health and safety issues, and even used yyy's email. Zzz asked again that this has been going on for too long what's being done about it. The Area Manager replied that `there are more emails and communications to me from yyy that are more damaging to you , if you would have seen them you would have walked away a long time ago` ` i was protecting you.

After 13 years with the company zzz , completely crushed, left the next day.

Sorry if I've added to much context.

My questions is

when and what should have been done and by whom.

Should the area Manger taken more action himself?

Is it the Area Managers responsibility to `Protect` a manager colleague from allegations and derogatory criticisms or should zzz have the right to respond to any inside or outside allegations?

Should the HR department been informed and taken control as this developed

This is a big company with a robust Legal and HR department

Kind Regards Darrell
.

[ULA]

darrell I have had to go through the posts on this thread to anonymise names please remember this is a public forum.

Also does this relate to your other thread?

https://legalbeagles.info/forums/for...-errors-bundle

[darrell]

Hi, so sorry , the names are not real in the post. It is kind of related. So sorry if I'm not following procedure , kind regards Darrell

[dslippy]

This is a sad story. The letter of authority may not have had too much to do with it. yyy might have said what they said without it and management might have listened.
If any remedy existed it may (emphasise may) have been an allegation of constructive dismissal - that the company acted to undermine the fundamental relationship of employer and employee. Constructive Dismissal is the atom bomb in such situations. It can be very difficult to establish, and is very much a last resort.