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Hi there,
My wife has just begun the proceedings for ACAS conciliation as we have used up all the options internally, and would like some feedback and advice. I apologise in advance for the length, but would severely appreciate any feedback. I also note we were considering using a no-win, no-fee representation to mitigate initial costs if this DID go to Tribunal.
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My wife has had a previous range of issues at her workplace, including one female manager making physical contact. The company admitted this in writing, although stated it was only a tap! This will potentially come up in the tribunal but I only mention it now to highlight my wife's issues at this employer have been long running. She has always tried to fight back and keep working, as she did not want to leave the role early and do her CV a disfavor or to have to relearn a role, when essentially she enjoys her current role. (The role, not the environment!) She works for a medium sized company, the UK wing of a spanish employment agency, subcontracted out to a very large bank where she works as a permanent role. (One of the major players). My understanding is everyone in Customer Services technically works for this 3rd party as opposed to directly for the bank, probably for tax reasons; although for all intensive purposes aside from the name on the contract, they basically work for the bank. This is a permanent not temporary role.
Essentially the issue began last year, where a lady at my wife's person whom she didn't previously have a working relationship with began acting poorly. On the first occasion, my wife at the time was a Complaints Resolution handler, and thus was meant to give feedback. The lady was rude, shouted at her and tampered with her phone while she was on the phone to a customer and otherwise generally made an idiot of herself. My wife fed back (as part of her role) that this behaviour was poor and should not happen and copied in the other staff member's manager on this email as was her role at the time. There was never any feedback received. She herself did not persue this any further at the time.
Then a month or two later, the lady started doing other stuff, and causing issues during the start of another shift of my wife's, which actually resulted in my wife logging in to the phones late. Her company monitors closely and thus this could have an adverse effect. It also tampers with her work, and this is one thing my wife truly despises. At this point, my wife approached her manager as she wanted the lady's potentially bullying/harassing behaviour monitored to prevent this becoming a bigger issue (!). He was busy at the time and asked her to explain the situation to him in writing, which she promptly did as requested. He asked her what he thought was causing this behaviour, she didn't have a solid reason because of how little interaction or contact she'd had with this individual. As she had nothing to go on, and the woman's behaviour seemed illogical, she said it COULD be race-related, but that she wasn't sure. The reason she mentioned race was due to how irrational the lady's hatred was, and the simple fact she is Asian (mixed Chinese/Japanese ethnicity) and a minority amongst the staff at her location, as there is only one other Chinese person she is aware of working for her company in the multiple Milton Keynes locations (whom is a manager so not at the same level as her either), and if there are more, certainly not many or that she is aware of. My wife has experienced racist comments before, including from people at that employer (although not any she could claim she has evidence for unfortunately), so it seemed a logical thought train, but again I stress my wife's original email states that is a possibility and an assumption. It was not an allegation and she stated that this was not definitely the case. The reasoning however was without ill-intent and made in good faith. My wife didn't have much else to go on!
After discussing the situation with my wife briefly, said manager asked if he could forward the email to HR to which my wife agreed as she wanted to feel safe and protected at work. This was the entire reason for speaking to her manager in the first place. It later turns out he has forwarded her original email without any footnotes on the supplemental conversations, which won't have helped clarify matters.
A month or two passed, with no discussion on the matter from HR, and my wife suddenly found herself with a grievance on her doorstep, made by the other lady, for Defamation of Character and Slander. As admitted by one of the HR staff, someone in the company showed the other lady the above mentioned confidential email by mistake! At no point during their investigation had anyone spoken to my wife (as they were meant to according to the company handbook) and they had shown her my wife's email which was meant to really be between my wife and her manager, in essence providing her evidence to her argument and enabling her! The situation should have been dealt with anonymously and subtly as an investigation of this sort. By giving her this much information, they really crippled my wife's chances to sort this out without minimal impact or of uncovering much evidence, as she is certainly going to obfusticate the process and any evidence of her misdeeds now!
As per advice my wife got from her father, she launched a counter-grievance to try and highlight that there was no slander and in fact this situation had fundamentally evolved from the other lady's behaviour, unfortunately the company missed the opportunity to close the matter there by rejecting my wife's counter-grievance as not having enough substantiable evidence, but leaving the other lady's intact (yes, great, you showed her an email where this suggestion had been made so of course she has evidence!!).
My wife was extremely distressed by this turn of events, as all she had wanted was monitoring and protection to feel she could do her work safely. As the company had advised her they did not have enough evidence to be able to support her stance, my wife tried to discuss with her manager how she could gain said evidence, as she had her investigative meeting coming up with HR. Her manager point blank refused to get involved or discuss the matter. She then tried to speak to one of the HR staff passing through the office at the time, but he stopped her from speaking to them as well, leaving her pretty well cut off from any support internally.
My wife at this point found herself without counsel, and facing a hearing for misconduct which had been enabled by the company (by supplying evidence to the other lady), with seemingly no way to proceed positively. As the hearing was coming up rapidly, she was intensely stressed. She discussed the situation with myself (her husband) and her father to try to think of some way to help and in the end, the way forward seemed to be to see if we could find some further evidence of the other lady's activities.
With this in mind, the next day she went back to the area where the 2nd incident had occurred to see if she could find any other witnesses to the event. She did not, but she did find a number of people who advised that this lady was a nasty piece of work, and seemingly there was a bigger issue with her bullying or showing poor attitude to other staff members and to customers. I say bullying very specifically as she can seemingly be very nice to a lot of people, but be selectively extremely nasty to those she doesn't like. She was also told there were other people who have had issues and others who sit around that location who may have seen something so was advised to try again next day. With this in mind, she went back the following day with a simple statement for people to put signatures/names against if they had seen anything. It was a very simple statement to the affect that they had seen PERSON X being unprofessional or rude to my wife, themselves or others. Around 10 people were willing to put signatures and names to this statement, many of whom came to my wife independently to do so! Seemingly there was a wider problem! I will also clarify she was doing this on her lunch/breaks and not taking up company time.
The next day, whilst she was there, one of the managers passed by and advised her to stop and go and get lunch which she complied with. There were seemingly more people who wanted to sign, but as she had a number of signatures already my wife felt confident that her case would at least some evidence to back up her stance and she was no longer without any evidence as to the other party's poor behaviours.
During her hearing meeting, she advised and showed the present company representatives this evidence, and they advised her not to take any more signatures incase this was looked upon poorly. As she was certainly not trying to cause any issue, she immediately stopped taking signatures so as to be compliant with advice given. Several more people came to her wanting to sign due to the negative behaviours of the other party, but she simply stated that following advice in her hearing that she could not take further signatures for now.
The hearing outcome came through and my wife was horrified to discover she had been given Gross Misconduct for the crime of False Accusation, Victimisation and Bullying, which they also tied back to her attempting to get evidence and signatures and invalidated them as they could not find evidence they had seen her particular incident! My wife was utterly gobsmacked. A number of said witnesses had not wanted to come forward to make further statement, others had apparently advised they had not seen that my wife's incident but it was actually in hearing notes somewhere that they had been told by several people the other party 'is a horrible person'. Surely this must have been somewhat damning indictment of my wife's situation?!
As you would expect, she immediately appealed highlighting that she had neither made allegations, only suppositions, and that this entire scenario had grown from her following company advice to seek assistance in her situation, and had grown from a company screw up showing the other party a confidential email and that this entire proceeding was an escalation of something that should have been dealt with in a quick, professional manner. She had only asked for the situation to be monitored!
The company broke there own expected investigation length and given date of outcome, and took a number of weeks to respond to the appeal. However even with this, on arrival, the outcome was not positive.
The company rejected her appeal hearing twisting some of what had been said during the various meetings, and also putting in that in retrospection 'it was not your intention to bully or victimise' but that 'conducting a petition in an attempt to verify that she was depicting bulling behaviour is insupportable and unacceptable'. They also chose to state that you could always address things with managers and HR and that they are approachable and happy to help, completely ignoring that she had raised that actually, she had tried that and had been denied counsel at the time and found no help whatsoever! Obviously ignoring or avoiding given evidence because it doesn't allow them to wiggle out of things!
At the time my wife had discussed this with the Equality Advisory and Support Service and with ACAS, and both had stated to her that actually, with potential bullying involved there should be no reason she could not try to take statements to that effect or sought evidence, and it was a perfectly reasonable step to take with the situation all considered.
They also deemed that as my wife could not provide explicit/sufficient examples to suggest that the other party was being explicitly racist towards her because of her ethnicity as per initial feeling, that essentially they were ignoring this and not doing anything with it.
My wife wrote a grievance to them over this treatment, advising that not only had they broken numerous points within their own handbook in regards to their treatment of her and the protections she should have been afforded, and also showing the other lady her letter, but also that they had seemingly Victimised her over her suggestion of racism in attempt to cover up the situation, and broken the Equalities Act which treats all claims of racism and connected as a protected act, even if later proven to be incorrect, as long as there was no ill-intent and what was said was said in good faith.
The company has even stated in it's appeal outcome that it was not my wife's intention to bully or victimise the other person, so they have stated that both of the above are true and that there was not ill intent, they have also not disproved that this was put forward in good faith, amongst other possible causes. They also said they could not find enough substantiative evidence to support her stance, but did not out and out say it was false.
Perhaps not surprisingly given the entire farce, her company completely refused to consider the grievance despite it highlighting contraventions of their own handbook and potentially UK law. She received the email confirming the company wouldn't even consider her grievance last week.
ACAS were contacted to lodge the conciliation process inside the week under grounds of victimisation and breach of a protected act, and have contacted her to begin conciliation yesterday. Her aim is of course to get the final written warning completely expunged. Anything more would seem churlish and potentially unreasonable unless this goes further.
The original outcome of the final appeal was actually received late January, so this is the date we have treated as the last act from the company for ACAS purposes, rather than the grievance outcome. My wife would have lodged her grievance sooner, but unfortunately the stress involved and other factors have actually made my wife considerably sick over the duration this process has been running. Stress was actually cited amongst other reasons in at least one doctor's note given to the company during her several absences.
My wife has not actually worked for her employer for quite 2 years, she is around a month short, although we understand under victimisation and protected act tenants, this removes that obstruction to proceeding to tribunal as necessary, which ACAS seem to be in agreement with.
She intends to go to Tribunal with a much harsher stance to what she wants if the conciliation is not successful, especially as the company seems to think it can completely ignore a grievance highlighting breach of of UK law.
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Apologies for the length, I think I have covered the mainstay of the issues. Any feedback appreciated. I am sure you can appreciate this has been taxing and stressful for my wife, me and her father as we have tried to get through this entire process, and I know that my wife has really reached the point where the straw has broken the camels back in terms of frustration. She is still working for the company as she does not want to lose her job, and does not want to wish trading the devil she knows for another, but if a good job at a good employer came up with a solid working environment came up, I think I know what her response would be! She has simply out and out had it with them.
Laughably, the manager who they had to admit in writing made physical contact (gross misconduct, and potentially assault if she had wanted to take it that way) is still working there, despite the fact they have had to admit contact, and thus Gross Misconduct. So they can keep her in place despite recorded admission of gross misconduct, then do this to my wife. Shambles.
Potentially I think they will ignore or turn away the ACAS conciliation option to get this resolved with no more serious outcomes, considering how monumentally stupid they seem to have been up until now. I have heard down the grapevine the company has lost a number of business tribunals over it's actions in the past, so it wouldn't surprise me if they still haven't learnt.
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If you need to see the grievance launched which they decided to ignore, would be happy to attach a copy.
My wife has just begun the proceedings for ACAS conciliation as we have used up all the options internally, and would like some feedback and advice. I apologise in advance for the length, but would severely appreciate any feedback. I also note we were considering using a no-win, no-fee representation to mitigate initial costs if this DID go to Tribunal.
****************
My wife has had a previous range of issues at her workplace, including one female manager making physical contact. The company admitted this in writing, although stated it was only a tap! This will potentially come up in the tribunal but I only mention it now to highlight my wife's issues at this employer have been long running. She has always tried to fight back and keep working, as she did not want to leave the role early and do her CV a disfavor or to have to relearn a role, when essentially she enjoys her current role. (The role, not the environment!) She works for a medium sized company, the UK wing of a spanish employment agency, subcontracted out to a very large bank where she works as a permanent role. (One of the major players). My understanding is everyone in Customer Services technically works for this 3rd party as opposed to directly for the bank, probably for tax reasons; although for all intensive purposes aside from the name on the contract, they basically work for the bank. This is a permanent not temporary role.
Essentially the issue began last year, where a lady at my wife's person whom she didn't previously have a working relationship with began acting poorly. On the first occasion, my wife at the time was a Complaints Resolution handler, and thus was meant to give feedback. The lady was rude, shouted at her and tampered with her phone while she was on the phone to a customer and otherwise generally made an idiot of herself. My wife fed back (as part of her role) that this behaviour was poor and should not happen and copied in the other staff member's manager on this email as was her role at the time. There was never any feedback received. She herself did not persue this any further at the time.
Then a month or two later, the lady started doing other stuff, and causing issues during the start of another shift of my wife's, which actually resulted in my wife logging in to the phones late. Her company monitors closely and thus this could have an adverse effect. It also tampers with her work, and this is one thing my wife truly despises. At this point, my wife approached her manager as she wanted the lady's potentially bullying/harassing behaviour monitored to prevent this becoming a bigger issue (!). He was busy at the time and asked her to explain the situation to him in writing, which she promptly did as requested. He asked her what he thought was causing this behaviour, she didn't have a solid reason because of how little interaction or contact she'd had with this individual. As she had nothing to go on, and the woman's behaviour seemed illogical, she said it COULD be race-related, but that she wasn't sure. The reason she mentioned race was due to how irrational the lady's hatred was, and the simple fact she is Asian (mixed Chinese/Japanese ethnicity) and a minority amongst the staff at her location, as there is only one other Chinese person she is aware of working for her company in the multiple Milton Keynes locations (whom is a manager so not at the same level as her either), and if there are more, certainly not many or that she is aware of. My wife has experienced racist comments before, including from people at that employer (although not any she could claim she has evidence for unfortunately), so it seemed a logical thought train, but again I stress my wife's original email states that is a possibility and an assumption. It was not an allegation and she stated that this was not definitely the case. The reasoning however was without ill-intent and made in good faith. My wife didn't have much else to go on!
After discussing the situation with my wife briefly, said manager asked if he could forward the email to HR to which my wife agreed as she wanted to feel safe and protected at work. This was the entire reason for speaking to her manager in the first place. It later turns out he has forwarded her original email without any footnotes on the supplemental conversations, which won't have helped clarify matters.
A month or two passed, with no discussion on the matter from HR, and my wife suddenly found herself with a grievance on her doorstep, made by the other lady, for Defamation of Character and Slander. As admitted by one of the HR staff, someone in the company showed the other lady the above mentioned confidential email by mistake! At no point during their investigation had anyone spoken to my wife (as they were meant to according to the company handbook) and they had shown her my wife's email which was meant to really be between my wife and her manager, in essence providing her evidence to her argument and enabling her! The situation should have been dealt with anonymously and subtly as an investigation of this sort. By giving her this much information, they really crippled my wife's chances to sort this out without minimal impact or of uncovering much evidence, as she is certainly going to obfusticate the process and any evidence of her misdeeds now!
As per advice my wife got from her father, she launched a counter-grievance to try and highlight that there was no slander and in fact this situation had fundamentally evolved from the other lady's behaviour, unfortunately the company missed the opportunity to close the matter there by rejecting my wife's counter-grievance as not having enough substantiable evidence, but leaving the other lady's intact (yes, great, you showed her an email where this suggestion had been made so of course she has evidence!!).
My wife was extremely distressed by this turn of events, as all she had wanted was monitoring and protection to feel she could do her work safely. As the company had advised her they did not have enough evidence to be able to support her stance, my wife tried to discuss with her manager how she could gain said evidence, as she had her investigative meeting coming up with HR. Her manager point blank refused to get involved or discuss the matter. She then tried to speak to one of the HR staff passing through the office at the time, but he stopped her from speaking to them as well, leaving her pretty well cut off from any support internally.
My wife at this point found herself without counsel, and facing a hearing for misconduct which had been enabled by the company (by supplying evidence to the other lady), with seemingly no way to proceed positively. As the hearing was coming up rapidly, she was intensely stressed. She discussed the situation with myself (her husband) and her father to try to think of some way to help and in the end, the way forward seemed to be to see if we could find some further evidence of the other lady's activities.
With this in mind, the next day she went back to the area where the 2nd incident had occurred to see if she could find any other witnesses to the event. She did not, but she did find a number of people who advised that this lady was a nasty piece of work, and seemingly there was a bigger issue with her bullying or showing poor attitude to other staff members and to customers. I say bullying very specifically as she can seemingly be very nice to a lot of people, but be selectively extremely nasty to those she doesn't like. She was also told there were other people who have had issues and others who sit around that location who may have seen something so was advised to try again next day. With this in mind, she went back the following day with a simple statement for people to put signatures/names against if they had seen anything. It was a very simple statement to the affect that they had seen PERSON X being unprofessional or rude to my wife, themselves or others. Around 10 people were willing to put signatures and names to this statement, many of whom came to my wife independently to do so! Seemingly there was a wider problem! I will also clarify she was doing this on her lunch/breaks and not taking up company time.
The next day, whilst she was there, one of the managers passed by and advised her to stop and go and get lunch which she complied with. There were seemingly more people who wanted to sign, but as she had a number of signatures already my wife felt confident that her case would at least some evidence to back up her stance and she was no longer without any evidence as to the other party's poor behaviours.
During her hearing meeting, she advised and showed the present company representatives this evidence, and they advised her not to take any more signatures incase this was looked upon poorly. As she was certainly not trying to cause any issue, she immediately stopped taking signatures so as to be compliant with advice given. Several more people came to her wanting to sign due to the negative behaviours of the other party, but she simply stated that following advice in her hearing that she could not take further signatures for now.
The hearing outcome came through and my wife was horrified to discover she had been given Gross Misconduct for the crime of False Accusation, Victimisation and Bullying, which they also tied back to her attempting to get evidence and signatures and invalidated them as they could not find evidence they had seen her particular incident! My wife was utterly gobsmacked. A number of said witnesses had not wanted to come forward to make further statement, others had apparently advised they had not seen that my wife's incident but it was actually in hearing notes somewhere that they had been told by several people the other party 'is a horrible person'. Surely this must have been somewhat damning indictment of my wife's situation?!
As you would expect, she immediately appealed highlighting that she had neither made allegations, only suppositions, and that this entire scenario had grown from her following company advice to seek assistance in her situation, and had grown from a company screw up showing the other party a confidential email and that this entire proceeding was an escalation of something that should have been dealt with in a quick, professional manner. She had only asked for the situation to be monitored!
The company broke there own expected investigation length and given date of outcome, and took a number of weeks to respond to the appeal. However even with this, on arrival, the outcome was not positive.
The company rejected her appeal hearing twisting some of what had been said during the various meetings, and also putting in that in retrospection 'it was not your intention to bully or victimise' but that 'conducting a petition in an attempt to verify that she was depicting bulling behaviour is insupportable and unacceptable'. They also chose to state that you could always address things with managers and HR and that they are approachable and happy to help, completely ignoring that she had raised that actually, she had tried that and had been denied counsel at the time and found no help whatsoever! Obviously ignoring or avoiding given evidence because it doesn't allow them to wiggle out of things!
At the time my wife had discussed this with the Equality Advisory and Support Service and with ACAS, and both had stated to her that actually, with potential bullying involved there should be no reason she could not try to take statements to that effect or sought evidence, and it was a perfectly reasonable step to take with the situation all considered.
They also deemed that as my wife could not provide explicit/sufficient examples to suggest that the other party was being explicitly racist towards her because of her ethnicity as per initial feeling, that essentially they were ignoring this and not doing anything with it.
My wife wrote a grievance to them over this treatment, advising that not only had they broken numerous points within their own handbook in regards to their treatment of her and the protections she should have been afforded, and also showing the other lady her letter, but also that they had seemingly Victimised her over her suggestion of racism in attempt to cover up the situation, and broken the Equalities Act which treats all claims of racism and connected as a protected act, even if later proven to be incorrect, as long as there was no ill-intent and what was said was said in good faith.
The company has even stated in it's appeal outcome that it was not my wife's intention to bully or victimise the other person, so they have stated that both of the above are true and that there was not ill intent, they have also not disproved that this was put forward in good faith, amongst other possible causes. They also said they could not find enough substantiative evidence to support her stance, but did not out and out say it was false.
Perhaps not surprisingly given the entire farce, her company completely refused to consider the grievance despite it highlighting contraventions of their own handbook and potentially UK law. She received the email confirming the company wouldn't even consider her grievance last week.
ACAS were contacted to lodge the conciliation process inside the week under grounds of victimisation and breach of a protected act, and have contacted her to begin conciliation yesterday. Her aim is of course to get the final written warning completely expunged. Anything more would seem churlish and potentially unreasonable unless this goes further.
The original outcome of the final appeal was actually received late January, so this is the date we have treated as the last act from the company for ACAS purposes, rather than the grievance outcome. My wife would have lodged her grievance sooner, but unfortunately the stress involved and other factors have actually made my wife considerably sick over the duration this process has been running. Stress was actually cited amongst other reasons in at least one doctor's note given to the company during her several absences.
My wife has not actually worked for her employer for quite 2 years, she is around a month short, although we understand under victimisation and protected act tenants, this removes that obstruction to proceeding to tribunal as necessary, which ACAS seem to be in agreement with.
She intends to go to Tribunal with a much harsher stance to what she wants if the conciliation is not successful, especially as the company seems to think it can completely ignore a grievance highlighting breach of of UK law.
***********************
Apologies for the length, I think I have covered the mainstay of the issues. Any feedback appreciated. I am sure you can appreciate this has been taxing and stressful for my wife, me and her father as we have tried to get through this entire process, and I know that my wife has really reached the point where the straw has broken the camels back in terms of frustration. She is still working for the company as she does not want to lose her job, and does not want to wish trading the devil she knows for another, but if a good job at a good employer came up with a solid working environment came up, I think I know what her response would be! She has simply out and out had it with them.
Laughably, the manager who they had to admit in writing made physical contact (gross misconduct, and potentially assault if she had wanted to take it that way) is still working there, despite the fact they have had to admit contact, and thus Gross Misconduct. So they can keep her in place despite recorded admission of gross misconduct, then do this to my wife. Shambles.
Potentially I think they will ignore or turn away the ACAS conciliation option to get this resolved with no more serious outcomes, considering how monumentally stupid they seem to have been up until now. I have heard down the grapevine the company has lost a number of business tribunals over it's actions in the past, so it wouldn't surprise me if they still haven't learnt.
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If you need to see the grievance launched which they decided to ignore, would be happy to attach a copy.
