Disciplinary investigations

[Whatif?]

An employer does not need to extensively investigate every element of the employee’s defence but, does an employer need to investigate their own allegations?

If the employer says your actions caused X to happen, do they have to investigate if X actually happened and prove X happened; or can they simply get away with saying X happened?

[jay69477]

Re: Disciplinary investigations

In my own experience i was accused of theft, the container was empty but during the meeting the chair outright said she didn't beileve it was empty. I asked her to prove it, as they had provided evidence that stated they could not verify the stock was missing. Her response was, this is not a court of law she didnt need to prove it!

I talked to a solicitor about this and he didnt really seem to disagree with her point.

Dunno if that helps

[leclerc]

Re: Disciplinary investigations

I think the issue is about proving it to the level of a civil court, ie that by the balance of probabilities that it happened rather than that there must be cast iron proof that something happened.

Hopefully that explains the issue of burden of proof at that level or proceedings.

[MLSolicitors]

Re: Disciplinary investigations

If an employee is accused of an allegation, the company must take all reasonable steps to investigate the allegations in the circumstances of the case. If the allegation states for example that the employee’s conduct has caused them a loss of some kind (such as a contract or a particular customer) then they should provide evidence of this, such as an email from the customer cancelling their order etc. A company can make an allegation that an employee’s conduct “could” have caused a loss (such as a loss of a contract) – and obviously in this instance the level of evidence required is reduced as we are talking hypothetically – but the company must still be able to evidence that there was a chance the contract could have been lost (i.e. the customer might write to the company to express their disappointment in the employee’s actions but state they will give the company the chance to rectify any issues and ask for the employee in question to not be involved with the supply of the goods or services under the contract in the future).