- Original Poster
- #1
In brief, my Partner (in life, not business!) Mr. P took a job 18 months ago with a small business who operate with a husband and wife director team and 3 other employees. Mr. P is the sales and design manager, second in command to the directors and pretty much runs the daily customer-facing affairs of the business. Dispite tough trading times, the company has been making a sizeable profit. The majority of this is attributable to Mr. P's efforts; orders are up, clients are happy and things are going well.
Increasingly though, the Directors are struggling to pay their key suppliers and told Mr. P this month that they would be unable to pay his commission due (which is based on a profit-share calculation), and he and his colleagues had to wait several days after his pay day to be paid their basic salary.
Because of these issues and several other related concerns, Mr. P felt the best course of action was to write a clear, amicable letter to the directors detailing the problems as he sees them and suggestions for how they might be resolved to the mutual benefit of all parties, and invite them to all sit down and try and work it out. That was sent on Sunday. He has as yet not had any form of response.
Yesterday, Mr P did not go in the office as he was out on the road at sales meetings and found he couldn't make any calls on his company mobile. Unusually, he had no calls or messages whatsoever from the office. His colleague whom shares his concerns and is aware that the letter was sent and is usually in regular contact with him did not take any of his calls all evening and has not returned his messages.
Today, he has arrived at work as usual and in his words 'everyone's acting like everything's normal', his colleague with whom he's usually thick as thieves seemed uncomfortable explaining she hadn't replied to his messages as it was a bit late (this is the woman who usually texts him at all hours about her latest grievance).
He has asked his director if they could have a meeting, and was told "Not yet I'm waiting for an HR consultant".
He's at work now trying to hold it together, and we're wondering what on earth they're going to do, what his rights are and how best to handle the situation. Any ideas??
Increasingly though, the Directors are struggling to pay their key suppliers and told Mr. P this month that they would be unable to pay his commission due (which is based on a profit-share calculation), and he and his colleagues had to wait several days after his pay day to be paid their basic salary.
Because of these issues and several other related concerns, Mr. P felt the best course of action was to write a clear, amicable letter to the directors detailing the problems as he sees them and suggestions for how they might be resolved to the mutual benefit of all parties, and invite them to all sit down and try and work it out. That was sent on Sunday. He has as yet not had any form of response.
Yesterday, Mr P did not go in the office as he was out on the road at sales meetings and found he couldn't make any calls on his company mobile. Unusually, he had no calls or messages whatsoever from the office. His colleague whom shares his concerns and is aware that the letter was sent and is usually in regular contact with him did not take any of his calls all evening and has not returned his messages.
Today, he has arrived at work as usual and in his words 'everyone's acting like everything's normal', his colleague with whom he's usually thick as thieves seemed uncomfortable explaining she hadn't replied to his messages as it was a bit late (this is the woman who usually texts him at all hours about her latest grievance).
He has asked his director if they could have a meeting, and was told "Not yet I'm waiting for an HR consultant".
He's at work now trying to hold it together, and we're wondering what on earth they're going to do, what his rights are and how best to handle the situation. Any ideas??
