Quick disciplinary question

[Kjun]

Hi been a while since I’ve been here just looking for some advice / thoughts on this one to do with my brother in law.

He works for a small company roughly 6 employees with 2 directors and was given a verbal warning letter about absence close of business Friday just gone.

This was done without any prior interview or investigation beforehand which I am pretty sure is not correct process and makes the decision predetermined and did not give any opportunity to respond or provide context.

By context briefly the job involves driving HGV vehicles and while the 24 days absence in a 12 month period would probably be seen as excessive 17 of these were covered by doctors notes for issues that could potentially make driving unsafe for example a knee injury.

There is an option to appeal this which I believe should be done at very least on procedural grounds but would welcome further thoughts and whether it would be worth asking for a copy of the company’s disciplinary procedure (or anything else you may think is useful)

[ULA]

Firstly can you just confirm how long your brother-in-law has worked for the company.

[Kjun]

Hi thanks for your reply he has been there 18 years.

The letter was pretty shocking to be honest and included a sentence which literally used the word worthless when describing him.

[ULA]

Your brother-in-law should ask for a copy of the disciplinary policy, if the company does not have one then at the very minimum they should have followed the ACAS guidelines. Presuming they are using the verbal warning letter as the first stage of their disciplinary process.

Also does the company have an absence management policy, I would guess not if it is such a small business.

A short answer is yes he should have been invited to a disciplinary meeting before being issued any warning particularly as they have put it in writing. They should have set out the allegations and allowed him to "defend" these at the meeting and be accompanied.

I would suggest that he does appeal on the basis of procedure and he should also set out that for17 days he was signed off by a GP as it would have been a potential health and safety risk given the role he does for him to be at work.