Staff member gives too much change .. facing disciplinary meeting

DubTony

A friends kid recently gave a customer €50 too much change. She works in a fashion retail outlet, so it's not unusual that she'd be handling large-ish amount of cash.

Anyway, I don't have all the details but she's coming to see my wife tonight for advice (my wife's background is in HR). I don't know how management became aware of the situation.

Here's how I'd handle it. I'd give her a stern written warning, and explain that this could be seen as sweet-hearting. While I'd explain that I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt on this (first) occasion, should there ever be any discrepancies in her till again, she'd be gone.

Some opinions from an employer point of view would be helpful here. Anything at all. Thanks.

macl

I'd recommend she has someone come with her to the meeting/hearing (fellow member of staff or a friend / advisor). The shop owners should have no problem with this formality if they are going to extend the formality of a disciplinary meeting.

50 euro is nothing if the member of staff is a hard working, reliable and generally trustworthy . We all make mistakes!

Lloyd Xmas

She'd be better off telling that crowd to stick their job if that's the way they're treating her after one mistake.
This BS would drive you insane - She made a mistake, she knows now, move on. No need to scar the kid. HR making mountains out of mole hills as usual to justify their existence.

DubTony

DubTony wrote: »

A friends kid recently gave a customer €50 too much change. She works in a fashion retail outlet, so it's not unusual that she'd be handling large-ish amount of cash.

Anyway, I don't have all the details but she's coming to see my wife tonight for advice (my wife's background is in HR). I don't know how management became aware of the situation.

Here's how I'd handle it. I'd give her a stern written warning, and explain that this could be seen as sweet-hearting. While I'd explain that I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt on this (first) occasion, should there ever be any discrepancies in her till again, she'd be gone.

Some opinions from an employer point of view would be helpful here. Anything at all. Thanks.

Maybe Tony she could arrive with the 50euro and just tell them, im sorry I made this mistake, here is the 50euro your short. If they are thinking she is up to no good she can say, look I know you count the till every day I am not that silly or never mind dishonest to steal 50 euro. Please except my apologies, and you can be sure Ill be triple checking the change i give out in the future.
The girl might think its unfair paying the 50euro back, but in the big picture it might be the best move for her.
Funny actually I made the same mistake when I worked in a cafe when I was young. Forgot to charge for a bottle of wine. told the boss to take it out of my tips. And he did, (pr***) :-)


EDIT: sorry tony I think I misunderstood, are you looking for opinions on what the girl should do, or what her employer might do?

TheCostumeShop.ie: Ronan

The question really is who did she give the change too. If shes seen handing over 50 quid to her friends then it would be a big deal other than that mistakes happen, a warning is kind of par to the course but its no big deal.

Chances are they are just going to remind her how import dealing with cash is set an example that big mistakes mean having to come in for a meeting as some sort of disincentive.

Buford T Justice

Deleted User wrote: »

Maybe Tony she could arrive with the 50euro and just tell them, im sorry I made this mistake, here is the 50euro your short.

Thats a no no. If someone did that to me, it would make me think they were being a bit clever with my cash trying to pocket it, and handing it back cos they got caught. i agree with Ronan, just a reminder of the importance of counting cash blah blah blah... that should be all she is facing.

If this is a formal disciplinary meeting then she has the right to have another colleague present as her independent witness.

PhatPiggins

DubTony wrote: »

A friends kid recently gave a customer €50 too much change. She works in a fashion retail outlet, so it's not unusual that she'd be handling large-ish amount of cash.

Anyway, I don't have all the details but she's coming to see my wife tonight for advice (my wife's background is in HR). I don't know how management became aware of the situation.

Here's how I'd handle it. I'd give her a stern written warning, and explain that this could be seen as sweet-hearting. While I'd explain that I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt on this (first) occasion, should there ever be any discrepancies in her till again, she'd be gone.

Some opinions from an employer point of view would be helpful here. Anything at all. Thanks.

My concern would be that if management became aware that it was her it was because they were watching her. It must be difficult to spot a one off situation like that in a busy fashion, did she have previous?

Its kind of hard to offer her any kind of advice without knowing the full story.

DubTony

Thanks lads.

Ronan ... No previous. There's no doubt in my mind this was an honest mistake.
PhatPiggins ... The transaction in question is explained below so it was real easy for the management to find the incident.
El Rifle ... Just looking to see what employers might do in this situation.

This was a stupid mistake to make. She broke all the procedures and left herself wide open.

She was the only staff member on an upstairs floor and after taking the customers money, there wasn't enough change in the till. She gave the customer some of the change :eek: and then went downstairs to make change at the other till. The customer came with her and she then counted out the change based on the receipt she was holding, and didn't account for the money she'd already passed over.

All in all a dumb thing to do. But I have to add this. She works for a major British retailer with hundreds of shops. All told she had a total of 1 hour till training when she started and no refreshers (even after maternity leave). Apart from that the company is covering itself quite well, with meeting after meeting about this. There have been 2 so far, with written records of both. It seems a manager will be brought in from a different store to conduct the investigation. While it's all very professional looking I have a feeling that the interviews weren't actually very professional at all. IMO the written records show a certain amount of inexperience in dealing with this sort of situation

But here's the shocker - she told us that the tills are always wrong and that they have regular "team meetings" about the discrepancies on the tills. No-one on the floor that day knew if the shop took large notes as payment for goods. The manager even asked the security guard "do we take €200 notes?" (Shoddy)

Her attitude could be better though. She didn't stand up for herself at all. Now this could be down to a lack of confidence (she's 21 and like most of her age it's all about parties and make-up. Career? What's that?). She gave short answers to questions, along the lines of "I suppose so", "probably not", "maybe I could try harder" etc. My wife asked her if she had offered to repay the shortfall. Her reaction was one of shock. "Noooooo !!!! Why would I do that? Sure they've loads of money"

It'll be interesting to see how it's handled at the disciplinary meeting. I have a feeling they're going to make an example of her. And tbh, if her work is anything like her attitude, the P45 is probably already written.

DubTony

In case anyone cares, I figured I'd post the "result".

She was given a verbal warning, after she'd pointed out that her till training was inadequate, and that she should have had a refresher after maternity leave.

Lucky IMO.

dormant_co_acc

If her till training was inadequate then she shouldn't be receiving any kind of warning surely.

Did a record of the verbal warning go on her file? Did she have to sign anything to acknowledge it?

DubTony

Haven't a clue. I wasn't bothered to ask.

91011

From experience a written warning is maximum punsihment that could have been given and even at that it would be harsh.

A verbal warning is probably best outcome - store manager probably got warning too.

The way I handled a similar case (taking in a dud note without checking on the note checker) was to get the person to work a couple of nominal hours in lieu for the cost - more as a reminder to be careful than a punishment. And then also to check that everyone knew what to check for on dud notes.

DubTony

91011 wrote: »

The way I handled a similar case (taking in a dud note without checking on the note checker) was to get the person to work a couple of nominal hours in lieu for the cost - more as a reminder to be careful than a punishment. And then also to check that everyone knew what to check for on dud notes.

I almost did that once. But then I thought that the cost of that "punishment", would have greatly outweighed any benefit. Looking at it from a staff members viewpoint, I figured there'd have been talk of slave labour and stuff like that. Morale, while not usually a factor in a convenience store, could have been damaged as well. And there was always the possibility that the staff member may just take their "pay" anyway. And I didn't need to be a part of helping to develop that culture. I think verbal warnings are treated by staff as just that, a telling off; but they're on record so the employer is covered while the staff member thinks that, to a degree, he/she "got away with it".

91011

DubTony wrote: »

I almost did that once. But then I thought that the cost of that "punishment", would have greatly outweighed any benefit. Looking at it from a staff members viewpoint, I figured there'd have been talk of slave labour and stuff like that. Morale, while not usually a factor in a convenience store, could have been damaged as well. And there was always the possibility that the staff member may just take their "pay" anyway. And I didn't need to be a part of helping to develop that culture. I think verbal warnings are treated by staff as just that, a telling off; but they're on record so the employer is covered while the staff member thinks that, to a degree, he/she "got away with it".

The staff member wanted to pay back the error out of her wages and was probably fearful for her job (this was 12 years ago - she had only started and didn't know I was easy going enough) so this allowed her "pay" for the error and feel more at ease. - she's recently re-started with me in another business on a part-time basis (she has 2 kids now) so obviously she had no bad feelings:D - also feels at ease to tell me to eff off these days if I'm in a mood!:p

rubberdiddies

91011 wrote: »

From experience a written warning is maximum punsihment that could have been given and even at that it would be harsh.

A verbal warning is probably best outcome - store manager probably got warning too.

The way I handled a similar case (taking in a dud note without checking on the note checker) was to get the person to work a couple of nominal hours in lieu for the cost - more as a reminder to be careful than a punishment. And then also to check that everyone knew what to check for on dud notes.

yeah management would have had to at least give her a verbal warning because if she made a habit of it they would need to have all warnings documented if they needed to let her go.

if she had been working for them for less than 1 year then they could have let her go without any warnings. Of course that would have been harsh.

People do make mistakes of course, but €50 is a lot of money, particularly if it is a small independent business