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Q: I held an informal hearing with my employee, who is a head chef, to hear about the complaints he has been receiving. He is fully qualified and trained but lately he just doesn’t seem to care about his work and his attitude is very negative. I have not been happy with his performances lately as one particular complaint involved me having to compensate 30 out of 40 people in one party, a potential wedding dinner and a full party of 15 people. He also almost served aubergines to a guest who had been noted as having a severe allergy and only the intervention of another employee prevented this. His actions have cost the company approximately £10,000. The complaints are basic matters and are more related to his conduct than performance. What should I do?
A: You could potentially treat this issue as serious misconduct and go straight to a final written warning. Finish your investigation and, if you need to, look into any matters that your employee has raised. Have a disciplinary hearing and bring forward your claims on his attitude, him getting basic things wrong that he should already know and the wedding issue, and then assess what he has to say before taking further action.
I have been having ongoing issues with an employee and have issued her with a final warning. Following the warning, my employee has been off sick 4 times. Our company policy is no more than 2 occasions within a 6 month period. A month later she signed off sick for 3 weeks on grounds of depression and stress. Whilst my employee was off, there were also issues with my other staff members discussing the behaviour of my employee and the amount of sickness she has taken through social media websites and phone messages. I would like advice as what to do with both these situations?
read moreI had an employee who also used the company nursery for her child. She put in a complaint about how her child was treated, and then sent a letter last month stating that because of this issue, she is resigning with immediate effect. She has worked for approximately 12 months. She did not raise a grievance with me but she had been off sick with depression and stress on two occasions. Her resignation letter states that she is resigning due to personal issues, thanking the staff who have worked with her. The employee also owes me a significant amount of nursery fees. What should I do?
read moreAn employee has had an accident in which an object penetrated their eye. I wish to keep them in my employment. If they end up with partial sight due to the incident, can they come back to work?
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