Thieving Employee

[Goblin]

Hi,

we have been made aware from one of our customers that an employee we send to their premises has (most likely - practically certain, it could not have been someone else) stolen from them. Not by a lot by still a total value of roughly 100 pounds of items that are very difficult/impossible to obtain in the UK.
That employee was already under suspicion due to events that took place in the past at other customer's premises. (Again, items disappearing, kitty box and fridge raided .... I know, don't ask :|)

Although there is no doubt that the employee will be summarily dismissed for gross misconduct, we do wonder what precautions we should take to avoid a backlash.

In addition, we are seriously considering docking the outstanding salary of the stolen amount - is this allowed? or are we opening ourselves up for trouble?

Last but not least, should we report the employee to the police?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated,

G

 

[Billmccallum]

Two phrases spring to mind... "most likely" and "under suspicion", which implies that you dont have concrete evidence that this employee is guilty of anything.

If a customer has had someone stolen they should report it to the Police and you should deal with your own allegations in-house, it would be dangerous to get involved in accusing someone of something that they "might" have done whilst not on your premises.

Dismissal without evidence will lead to a sucessful claim for unfair dismissal.

 

[LicensedToTrade]

Two phrases spring to mind... "most likely" and "under suspicion", which implies that you dont have concrete evidence that this employee is guilty of anything.

If a customer has had someone stolen they should report it to the Police and you should deal with your own allegations in-house, it would be dangerous to get involved in accusing someone of something that they "might" have done whilst not on your premises.

Dismissal without evidence will lead to a sucessful claim for unfair dismissal.

Billmccallum has summarised it well, if you don't have sufficient evidence then you cannot legally dismiss this employee.

Have you already confronted the employee in question to ask them what they know about the missing items?

 

[Goblin]

Yes I agree - that's why I was forced to add that bit in the question and we would be under obligation to say it every time (unless she admits to it in person).
But the facts really do stack up against her - she was the only person with access to the premises (usual caveats apply) and we have previous incidents. At some point you have to put 2 and 2 together.

 

[Goblin]

To LicensedToTrade - Thanks for your reply;
We are (my wife) is confronting the employee today, I'm awaiting results of confrontation

 

[LicensedToTrade]

Yes I agree - that's why I was forced to add that bit in the question and we would be under obligation to say it every time (unless she admits to it in person).
But the facts really do stack up against her - she was the only person with access to the premises (usual caveats apply) and we have previous incidents. At some point you have to put 2 and 2 together.

Unfortunately 99% certainty still isn't enough if there is no valid evidence to support it, all you have at present is circumstantial evidence. It isn't enough to eliminate all other people who could have done it and be left with one person and then assume it was them, this wouldn't hold up in court and it certainly wouldn't hold up in a tribunal.

In this situations where there can never be a clear win for the employer, you need to be thinking about which course of action lends itself to the least possible damage to your company both financially and by way of reputation. Damage limitation if you will.

If I were in your position (and I have limited information on what that position is) then I would decide that £100 is not a lot of money but the damage to the relationship with my customer might be of higher value.

If I wanted to handle this quietly and in a way that keeps my customer happy and I genuinely believe it was my employee to blame then I would reimburse the customer the £100 and at the same time make it clear that this is not an admission of guilt but rather a gesture of goodwill.

I would reassign the employee (who at this point is only alleged to have stolen) to another job that keeps them out of the way until a proper investigation can be carried out.

NB: In response to your most recent comment, I asked about whether you have confronted the employee already so that if you haven't I could warn you to be very careful about how you approach it. Avoid going down the route of accusation, it won't get you anywhere. Ask open questions, don't make statements of fact. Let the employee tell the story from their perspective rather than forcing your opinion of how the story goes onto them.

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

Of course you can take disciplinary action, and of course that can lead to dismissal. You don’t need compelling evidence, to take finger prints or have witnesses, have firm rather than circumstantial evidence, let alone require more than 99% certainty; a reasonable conclusion based on the available facts is sufficient. (These are civil matters, not criminal matters, so the basis of evidence is not as high.)

The test at an employment tribunal would be whether you gathered sufficient available facts to reach your conclusion, and put these to the employee giving them a chance to respond. At the moment, it doesn’t sound like you have (or if you have, not in a constructive manner that can be presented to the employee so they can respond to the allegations).

You should be suspending this employee (with pay unless your contracts provide otherwise), and then investigating (or ideally getting someone independent to investigate) the matter sufficiently before reaching conclusions on whether a disciplinary offence has taken place.

We are (my wife) is confronting the employee today, I'm awaiting results of confrontation

Has the employee been told of a suspected disciplinary matter, and been advised of their rights in respect to an interview? If not, you could screw up the process, and would therefore be wise to stop all actions/meetings until you ensure you follow a correct procedure.


If you have reasonable grounds to suspect the employee is guilty of theft, you can dismiss. There is a process to follow, but with the boxes ticked, you will be fine to dismiss if gross misconduct is reasonably concluded. (Why are employers so scared of tribunals? Done properly, it is more than reasonable to dismiss a thieving employee, so no point sweeping the issues under the carpet, moving the employee to different work!)



Karl Limpert

 

[PI Guy]

Of course you can take disciplinary action, and of course that can lead to dismissal. You don’t need compelling evidence, to take finger prints or have witnesses, have firm rather than circumstantial evidence, let alone require more than 99% certainty; a reasonable conclusion based on the available facts is sufficient. (These are civil matters, not criminal matters, so the basis of evidence is not as high.)

The test at an employment tribunal would be whether you gathered sufficient available facts to reach your conclusion, and put these to the employee giving them a chance to respond. At the moment, it doesn’t sound like you have (or if you have, not in a constructive manner that can be presented to the employee so they can respond to the allegations).

You should be suspending this employee (with pay unless your contracts provide otherwise), and then investigating (or ideally getting someone independent to investigate) the matter sufficiently before reaching conclusions on whether a disciplinary offence has taken place.



Has the employee been told of a suspected disciplinary matter, and been advised of their rights in respect to an interview? If not, you could screw up the process, and would therefore be wise to stop all actions/meetings until you ensure you follow a correct procedure.


If you have reasonable grounds to suspect the employee is guilty of theft, you can dismiss. There is a process to follow, but with the boxes ticked, you will be fine to dismiss if gross misconduct is reasonably concluded. (Why are employers so scared of tribunals? Done properly, it is more than reasonable to dismiss a thieving employee, so no point sweeping the issues under the carpet, moving the employee to different work!)



Karl Limpert

I was just about to jump in when you made the only sensible post in this thread.

 

[ccp consultancy]

Hi,


Although there is no doubt that the employee will be summarily dismissed for gross misconduct, we do wonder what precautions we should take to avoid a backlash.

In addition, we are seriously considering docking the outstanding salary of the stolen amount - is this allowed? or are we opening ourselves up for trouble?

There has to be doubt in order for you to conduct a fair hearing - you cannot go into a hearing asssuming that the employee has stolen xyz - you will need to enable the employee to provide an explanation - it could be (for arguements sake) that the customers "troublesome" son stole the things, and your employee witnessed this - you obviously are right to suspend to find this out - but then this will change the outcome - as you would not have grounds to dismiss in these circumstances

If the employee does not come up with any mitigating circumstances, then you have to weigh up both sides of the arguement. In employment law you look at "the balance of probabilities" ie what is likely to have happened. You do not have to satisfy yourself "beyond reasonable doubt" as you would have to if you were a police officer

So if you follow a fair procedure, and at the very least comply with the ACAS Code Of Practise -then it is likely to be deemed a fair dismissal - the tribunal will then look at "would any reasonable employer have come to this decision".. probably yes

With regards to deducting from wages, unless you have a clause in your contract permiting you to deduct money for xyz - then probably you will not be able to do this, this would be deemed an unlawful deduction

Hope this helps

 

[Goblin]

I wish this forum would allow to thank multiple times

Karl, you are absolutely correct - I was saying that to my wife this morning, do not speak in 'absolutisms' when talking to the employee (and then see what I wrote as a subject for this thread! :|) - this is thanks to reading so many horror stories and gone through all the sound advice given in this very place.

She did have the talk with the employee and I think it was handled pretty well - she did indeed simply put the facts to the employee and ask if she knew anything about it or could say anything about it. The employee denied any knowledge of anything missing or of having taken anything.
The materials were collected without any issues and my wife said to the employee that she would not be sent to customers for the time being until we have a better understanding of what happened.

Re the customer, although he made his feelings very clear yesterday, things seem to be much better today and we are hoping that the reputation of the business with that customer can be rescued - this is much more valuable to us than the amount we will have to pay him. And we will gladly pay the customer for replacement items as soon as possible.

Re the employee, we have the following plan:
Since she is on flexible hours and no more than 16 hours a week (because of the various support monies she receives)
and she is not working the same hours every week
and not for the same customers week on week
and therefore she basically is an on-call staff for all intents and purposes
I would suggest we could simply let the work 'dry up' for her and that will be that ... is that a good plan?
(and minor point: there is no signed contract to speak of ... I know **hangs head in shame**)

 

[ccp consultancy]

Re the employee, we have the following plan:
Since she is on flexible hours and no more than 16 hours a week (because of the various support monies she receives)
and she is not working the same hours every week
and not for the same customers week on week
and therefore she basically is an on-call staff for all intents and purposes
I would suggest we could simply let the work 'dry up' for her and that will be that ... is that a good plan?
(and minor point: there is no signed contract to speak of ... I know **hangs head in shame**)

No, I do not think this is a good plan if I am honest - the problem you have is that this person is likely to be a thief - this is a gross misconduct and as such you can no longer trust her to work with this customer, or any other customer to be frank

If you let the work "dry up" this could leave you with problems further down the line, expecially if she pulls a discrimination card out of the bag

My suggestion

1) suspend her
2) hold investigatiory meeting, offer representation etc etc
3) Hold a disciplinary meeting
4) If enough evidence - dismiss with right of appeal etc etc

This is then over and done with. If she does take it to tribunal you will win as you have followed correct procedure

If you need assistance with this I am sure that either ELC or myself will be able to assist

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

(and minor point: there is no signed contract to speak of ... I know **hangs head in shame**)

Not a minor point, particularly given you’ve read many horror stories:

this is thanks to reading so many horror stories and gone through all the sound advice given in this very place.

You could find yourself among the horror stories and in an employment tribunal solely for this “minor point”! I’m sure among the sound advice given here before that there has been advice to get employment contracts in place... but if not let me put that right now: all employers should ensure they have issued a "statement of particulars" to each of their employees and that these meet the needs of sections 1-4 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA) (not simply & wrongly declaring they do, as I found with one I reviewed from someone on here recently). Employers that have not issued these documents could face an employment tribunal claim simply because this has not been done, and that is regardless of length of service. As an offer for current forum members/employers with documents in place, the next ten that PM me, I will arrange to review their documents and highlight (and I would suspect from experience that there would be many I could find a fault with) where they do not meet the needs of the ERA.

Re the employee, we have the following plan:
Since she is on flexible hours and no more than 16 hours a week (because of the various support monies she receives)
and she is not working the same hours every week
and not for the same customers week on week
and therefore she basically is an on-call staff for all intents and purposes
I would suggest we could simply let the work 'dry up' for her and that will be that ... is that a good plan?

As an alternative plan to sweep the matter under the carpet, a reasonable substitute to shifting her to different work!

Not an ideal way to deal with the matter though, and it won’t be helpful when you need to show consistency the next time an employee is guilty of theft or other misconduct.

You would also have the (not minor) problem of effectively dismissing her by the back door, hoping your non-existent contract is a zero hours contract. Ergo, I wouldn’t recommend this course of action; you should take the appropriate action for an employer dealing with potential gross misconduct: follow a disciplinary procedure that complies with the ACAS CoP, and decide what action to take if she is found guilty of gross misconduct - the advice by CCP above, a much more sensible plan.


Karl Limpert

 

[saxondale]

take a step back - let the customer call the police ........ then you have your reasons for suspending her.

 

[ccp consultancy]

take a step back - let the customer call the police ........ then you have your reasons for suspending her.

So as well as providing an employee to the customer who has stolen from them, we now will cause them even greater inconvenience by having to complete police reports etc etc.. . I can really see the OP retaining that customer

An employer does not have to involve the police in situations of theft - large retailers often will as they will also go down the route of civil recovery - but it is not necessary

And even if police are involved an employer does not have to wait for the end of the police investigation prior to dismissing an employee

The burden of proof in employment law is not as great as it would be in criminal prosecutions and so the employer does not need "an excuse" to suspend the employee - the circumstances as they are, provide more than enough justification for a suspension

 

[Goblin]

Thanks all for all the answers and the guidance - really really appreciated.

Involving the police is indeed unnecessary - there will be no physical evidence, the value is not that great, it will be the word of the customer against the employee so it is all a bit pointless. They just can not offer any help in this regard.
From our side, there is simply no doubt - the items were there in the morning, one person came in, then the items were gone - it just could not be anybody else at all; and I can not believe for one second that it would be the customer playing tricks on us.

We have now spoken to the customer face to face and he is happy with the actions we undertook (such as getting straight back in touch with them, asking the right questions etc) and he also seems happy, for the moment, for us to carry on with the service we currently provide, which we are delighted about because reputation and trust is everything in our business.
The customer does insist though on us changing the locks, which makes sense and we are happy with that - they were actually not really expecting us to replace the items or offer a compensation for it but we did insist on it because it is just the right thing to do. It has to be said that we have total confidence in the word of our customer - although I am a total cynic and by default trust no one, this is a different case - it just would not make any sense at all.

Re the employee, I spoke to her and explained that she will not be required to attend to her duties for now, that her salary is safe (that was her first question by the way after being asked about the situation ... ) and that we will get back to her in due course.
What I intend to do is write up the facts, not just on this situation but also plenty others (not turning up, being late, bad quality of work, bad feedback from customers and the likes), we do have most of these documented through email exchanges etc and then invite her to a meeting where she would be welcomed to bring someone along and then basically explain that in light of all this, the trust we have in her is basically spent and we are letting her go. That will be that and I sincerely believe this is fair.
At the end of the day, this is our business, every penny comes out of our own pocket - what we pay out for the locks, replacement items, lost contracts (we consider her responsible for a number of customer cancellations) etc comes directly out of our very own money.
It was only out of our good heart that we did want to give her a chance .. but there you go, some people are just never grateful for what others do for them.

Now, what if it was all wrong? What if we were being played or what if, unbeknown to the customer, the (e.g.) neighbour came round and helped himself? then, from a business perspective, we would have forked out a relatively small amount and lost a badly performing employee - no big deal.
It would of course be a shame for the employee, but if she would have been excellent in the first place, then we may have given her another chance.

Again, thank you for all your answers, it allowed us to remain relatively cool about it and approach it sensibly - I know that some people, on this forum too (see the post about the guy who shared HR info with a colleague and got found out ), would have had the desire to have a .. lets say more hands-on approach .. maybe just the desire, but not actually gone through with it

 

[paulears]

One point from your first post

That employee was already under suspicion due to events that took place in the past at other customer's premises.

It does occur to me that if you knew or suspected a problem, then you could well be held to be responsible for the theft in some degree at the second customer's home? As you say, it's not going to warrant Police action - but if you had reasons to suspect, then it was asking for trouble just hoping she'd be good next time.

 

Of course you can take disciplinary action, and of course that can lead to dismissal. You don’t need compelling evidence, to take finger prints or have witnesses, have firm rather than circumstantial evidence, let alone require more than 99% certainty; a reasonable conclusion based on the available facts is sufficient. (These are civil matters, not criminal matters, so the basis of evidence is not as high.)

The test at an employment tribunal would be whether you gathered sufficient available facts to reach your conclusion, and put these to the employee giving them a chance to respond. At the moment, it doesn’t sound like you have (or if you have, not in a constructive manner that can be presented to the employee so they can respond to the allegations).

You should be suspending this employee (with pay unless your contracts provide otherwise), and then investigating (or ideally getting someone independent to investigate) the matter sufficiently before reaching conclusions on whether a disciplinary offence has taken place.



Has the employee been told of a suspected disciplinary matter, and been advised of their rights in respect to an interview? If not, you could screw up the process, and would therefore be wise to stop all actions/meetings until you ensure you follow a correct procedure.


If you have reasonable grounds to suspect the employee is guilty of theft, you can dismiss. There is a process to follow, but with the boxes ticked, you will be fine to dismiss if gross misconduct is reasonably concluded. (Why are employers so scared of tribunals? Done properly, it is more than reasonable to dismiss a thieving employee, so no point sweeping the issues under the carpet, moving the employee to different work!)



Karl Limpert

Don't agree without physical evidence there is no case.

The owner of the property could have taken it ,and be trying for an insurance fraud.

It would most certainly be a criminal matter .

I would think if you dismissed someone based on suspicion ,you would lay yourself open to many legal problems.

Earl

 

[ccp consultancy]

What I intend to do is write up the facts, not just on this situation but also plenty others (not turning up, being late, bad quality of work, bad feedback from customers and the likes), we do have most of these documented through email exchanges etc and then invite her to a meeting where she would be welcomed to bring someone along and then basically explain that in light of all this, the trust we have in her is basically spent and we are letting her go. That will be that and I sincerely believe this is fair.

I have to say I wouldn't bother bringing anything else in to cloud the situation - stick to the fact at hand - things went missing, you believe it was her - if you bring other things into the pot, which should have been dealt with previously - then it clouds what the real reason for dismissal is

Keep It Short & Simple - stick to the facts of this situation only - you have more than enough reason to dismiss on this basis (presuming that she does not bring any justifiable explanation at the disciplinary hearing)

 

[Billmccallum]

All sounds great if you read it with your subjective viewpoint, but what about being objective?

Have other instances of theft been followed through? Have complaints from clients resulted in disciplinary action? Are you really so sure that nobody else at the clients premises could be responsible?

Taking an objective view, you take the action in your plan (having already decided that the employee is going before you have the investigation meeting), then two weeks later something else gets stolen.....who can you blame?

If the employee is a thief then she deserves everything you have planned, but if she is a scapegoat !!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel for her.

Thanks all for all the answers and the guidance - really really appreciated.

Involving the police is indeed unnecessary - there will be no physical evidence, the value is not that great, it will be the word of the customer against the employee so it is all a bit pointless. They just can not offer any help in this regard.
From our side, there is simply no doubt - the items were there in the morning, one person came in, then the items were gone - it just could not be anybody else at all; and I can not believe for one second that it would be the customer playing tricks on us.

We have now spoken to the customer face to face and he is happy with the actions we undertook (such as getting straight back in touch with them, asking the right questions etc) and he also seems happy, for the moment, for us to carry on with the service we currently provide, which we are delighted about because reputation and trust is everything in our business.
The customer does insist though on us changing the locks, which makes sense and we are happy with that - they were actually not really expecting us to replace the items or offer a compensation for it but we did insist on it because it is just the right thing to do. It has to be said that we have total confidence in the word of our customer - although I am a total cynic and by default trust no one, this is a different case - it just would not make any sense at all.

Re the employee, I spoke to her and explained that she will not be required to attend to her duties for now, that her salary is safe (that was her first question by the way after being asked about the situation ... ) and that we will get back to her in due course.
What I intend to do is write up the facts, not just on this situation but also plenty others (not turning up, being late, bad quality of work, bad feedback from customers and the likes), we do have most of these documented through email exchanges etc and then invite her to a meeting where she would be welcomed to bring someone along and then basically explain that in light of all this, the trust we have in her is basically spent and we are letting her go. That will be that and I sincerely believe this is fair.
At the end of the day, this is our business, every penny comes out of our own pocket - what we pay out for the locks, replacement items, lost contracts (we consider her responsible for a number of customer cancellations) etc comes directly out of our very own money.
It was only out of our good heart that we did want to give her a chance .. but there you go, some people are just never grateful for what others do for them.

Now, what if it was all wrong? What if we were being played or what if, unbeknown to the customer, the (e.g.) neighbour came round and helped himself? then, from a business perspective, we would have forked out a relatively small amount and lost a badly performing employee - no big deal.
It would of course be a shame for the employee, but if she would have been excellent in the first place, then we may have given her another chance.

Again, thank you for all your answers, it allowed us to remain relatively cool about it and approach it sensibly - I know that some people, on this forum too (see the post about the guy who shared HR info with a colleague and got found out ), would have had the desire to have a .. lets say more hands-on approach .. maybe just the desire, but not actually gone through with it

 

[mariefab]

How long has this employee worked for you?
If it's less than 51 weeks you could simply dismiss her with a week's notice.

 

[followmycaravan]

theft is theft. If you have proof, the employee should be dismissed and reported to the police.

 

[ccp consultancy]

How long has this employee worked for you?
If it's less than 51 weeks you could simply dismiss her with a week's notice.

If you dismiss at 51 weeks then with her statutory notice she will have claim for unfair dismissal.

Why would you pay someone notice pay, for the sake of a prima facie easy dismissal - this will open up a whole can of worms - is this a gross misconduct or not - if yes then manage it as such.

If it is a gross misconduct then you can summarily dismiss (with no lieu of notice).

In cases like this, it is better to follow procedure and dismiss safely, as this will then rebutt any legal claims, should they follow.

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

Don't agree without physical evidence there is no case.

The owner of the property could have taken it ,and be trying for an insurance fraud.

It would most certainly be a criminal matter .

I would think if you dismissed someone based on suspicion ,you would lay yourself open to many legal problems.

Earl

Suspicion - a reasonably held belief - is fine for a dismissal Earl, no need to have anything more than that. A few articles that cover this for reference:

http://careers.guardian.co.uk/careers-blog/theft-at-work
http://irenicon.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/reasonable-but-wrong/
http://www.lawdonut.co.uk/law/employment-law/discipline-and-grievance/gross-misconduct-16-faqs



Karl Limpert

 

[Goblin]

All very good points and yes, I must take them into account and not rush into things.
I have been relatively sparse with the details - some of them I feel are relevant .. here goes.

The premises in question are private properties:
If I would send someone to your house and I would tell you 'en passant' that a few of the houses the employee has been too have had reports of missing items and then say to you 'but no worries, just you go to work and leave her alone with all your stuff; we couldn't prove with 100% certainty she was involved so it must be ok' - what would you reaction be?
Your house is your castle (or whatever) - you will not want to have a single doubt as to the honesty of the person working in it on a regular basis (although amusingly, the vast majority of us seem to be quite comfortable sometimes to leave complete strangers in our house ... go figure).
So, we can not take any risks.

The employee works alone so that in itself limits the 'candidates' responsible for this.

The Customer in question is a wealthy professional (not a banker ) and that amount of money is unlikely to make any difference to them.

The items are relatively low value but impossible to obtain in the UK and some were earmarked as Xmas presents. Unlikely to have been taken by the customer.

For this specific instance, the time span between all being good and the discovery of the missing items was less than 8 hours. If 'proper' burglars would have entered the house, they would have taken the other items of value (jewellery, laptops, tv, etc) and not be interested in any way in the items that were actually taken away.
As far as we can ascertain based on the conversation with the customer, only our employee had been in the house on that day. Think about your own house, you too would have a fair idea of who, if anybody, would pop round - yes, it is possible that your mum came round to bake you a nice cake as a surprise but you would likely find that out in the course of the day/evening/next day.

Again, it is not the value, it is the breach of trust, suspecting very strongly that your employee lies and steals from you is just very very annoying. As an (small) employer, you rely very strongly on the relation of trust between employer and employee and once that it is gone then things just become very difficult.

In the many years of trading - we had only 4 previous instances of issues, for two of them it became quickly apparent (less than 48 hours) that the employee was completely innocent. The two other instances never got resolved but this employee was 'near the scene of the crime'.

To be totally honest, my mind is still open to other possibilities - some people just get all the bad luck in the world and get less and less chances offered to them and I know that and just like ccp consultancy said I would also feel for her if it turned out to not be true.

Again, I need to let this rest on my mind before proceeding and stick to the facts.

Thanks to all for all your feedback!

G

 

Suspicion - a reasonably held belief - is fine for a dismissal Earl, no need to have anything more than that. A few articles that cover this for reference:

http://careers.guardian.co.uk/careers-blog/theft-at-work
http://irenicon.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/reasonable-but-wrong/
http://www.lawdonut.co.uk/law/employment-law/discipline-and-grievance/gross-misconduct-16-faqs



Karl Limpert

That puts the employer in the position of judge and jury open to all sorts of abuse.?

In this case there is no evidence a crime has been commited except the word of the client.

quote

"An employer who believes a theft to have taken place would be on thin ice if they could not show any goods or money had gone missing"

Earl

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

Re the employee, I spoke to her and explained that she will not be required to attend to her duties for now, that her salary is safe (that was her first question by the way after being asked about the situation ... ) and that we will get back to her in due course.

She’s suspended, so you need to confirm this in writing (including the reason why – alleged gross misconduct in the form of theft), and how long this is likely to last – shouldn’t normally be more than five days before you have arranged a disciplinary hearing.

What I intend to do is write up the facts, not just on this situation but also plenty others (not turning up, being late, bad quality of work, bad feedback from customers and the likes), we do have most of these documented through email exchanges etc and then invite her to a meeting where she would be welcomed to bring someone along and then basically explain that in light of all this, the trust we have in her is basically spent and we are letting her go. That will be that and I sincerely believe this is fair.

Stick to the facts of the theft, and nothing more – a long list of issues looks like you’re out to dismiss, and have all these other issues to tackle if you don’t find that she was responsible for the theft.

As for the meeting, you have already made up your mind, but really you should only make a decision after considering the facts & hearing her account, together with any mitigating circumstances she may put forward. You should then take a brief time to reflect on everything before making a decision. As you want any dismissal letter to be handed to her, arrange a follow-up meeting for the following day, and dismiss her there, not at the end of the disciplinary hearing, as that again implies that you had your mind made up, and were going through the motions.

And do make sure all your correspondence to her meets the needs of a disciplinary, as you don’t want her to bring a claim on a technicality!



Karl Limpert

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

That puts the employer in the position of judge and jury open to all sorts of abuse.?

Yes, but if they do abuse this position, the tribunal would consider if a reasonable employer would have acted as they did.

In this case there is no evidence a crime has been commited except the word of the client.

quote

"An employer who believes a theft to have taken place would be on thin ice if they could not show any goods or money had gone missing"

Earl

On balance, there is no reason to doubt the client, and as there is no way of proving for certainty that there was any theft the employer can only go on the available facts. Therefore, certainly for this instance but also in similar circumstances, I would disagree with that quote - it isn't always possible to prove that a stapler, pen, etc has gone missing, so the employer can only act on the available facts. Occasionally some employees may lose out unfairly, but that's tough!


Karl Limpert