It pays to do your homework

This is to do with "Human Rescources" or the lack of them, but I don't want to put it on Clueless's thread because it isn't relative to his problem. But it triggered this memory and might be interesting as it was a result for the little guy.

Our youngest son now manages nearly a dozen estate agency branches for a large company and believe it or not his group makes a decent profit!

His first venture into that business was twenty years ago in his late teens and he was employed as a salesman for a local branch of chain of estate agents owned by a high street bank.
He'd been there a couple of years and was now getting a lot of unwarranted pressure from his manager so he asked my advice.
I could see a "contructive dismissal" on the horizon, so I composed for him three letters over the following three weeks, itemising the considered unreasonable behaviour of his manager, as related to me, asking the manager to explain the reasons for his attitude and what he could do to resolve the perceived problems. Each was sent recorded delivery.
As there was no response and nothing addressed, I suggested he used the "grievance procedure" and I helped him compose a short letter which he gave to his manager and we sent a copy to the chain's personnel department, by recorded mail.

A couple of days later his manager called him in and said "What's this all about?"

"Well, I expect you to sit down and discuss my grievence and see if we can come to a situation which is to my satisfaction. If we can't, I expect you to bring in your boss and we will go through it all again.
If this isn't to my satisfaction I expect someone in the company superior to your boss but not involved in the situation to adjudicate."

"Where did you get this idea from?"

"It's in the staff handbook you gave me" (he didn't, but I told my son to look round the office to find one, which he did).

The inevitable dismissal came and the IT1 went straight in.
The doo doo hit the fan as he got a letter from a firm of solicitors asking him to provide "copies of all correspondence." He politely replied that all correspondence had been sent recorded delivery, so it was their problem.

On the day of the tribunal, the group had engaged a solicitor. They came with "nothing."
I was there as he was allowed a companion, I think these days you have to have a solicitor yourself. They tried a bit of brinkmanship, but at the last minute came over and made a financial offer. I suggested they double it and someone from the company filled in the amount on the cheque as we sat outside the court.
The amount was enough for him to put down a deposit on his first house and buy some of his appliances and furnishings.
By this time our son already had a better job and a few months later he heard the manager in question had left the company.

Fortunately, I had had quite a bit of experience, due to my occupation. I always followed the procedures laid out in the staff handbook and I made a bit of a show sometimes of making sure that staff got what they were actually entitled to when they were unaware of it, which made the union look toothless, as "If I said no, I knew the union would have to say no, too."
I've been to three industrial tribunals on behalf of my firm and won the lot.

 

Well done Doghouse Riley. I agree totally with you. I have been a credit controller and as part of my job have appeared in the small claims court many times. In any court case you must prepare a case for the judge, which must be logical, factual, consistant and reasonable (ie no name calling etc). As a consequence if ever I have had a dispute, I have written my letters to the other party as if each letter were part of the case to be put before a judge. Very often, if your letters/case are that clear and logical, the other party will realise they don't have a leg to stand on - but not always.

 

It's a fact of life where there are business with many small branches which have a central HR department, they issue staff handbooks to new employees (they must by law) and give existing employes a new handbook whenever changes in employment law affect the content. Quite often the managers of these small branches, give out the handbooks, but never read them themselves.

In all industrial tribunals, the key words are "The test of reasonableness."

So from day one, the letters I was composing had that in mind, so nothing agressive, provocative or if you like "unreasonable." One look at that lot and the company's solicitor (who we were told was an employment law "expert") knew they were dead in the water.