Being forced out of my job

LegacyUser

This is quite a long post so apologies in advance. I've been working for 4 years with a company that's been doing very well over the last 12 - 18 months, and has a big year ahead. However, things have not been going so well for me. Firstly, I do not get on with my boss. This is a situation that was brought on by myself about 9 months ago as my performances dropped, and I admitted in a review meeting that I was looking for other work because I couldn't move forward in my current role. My review wasn't too bad back then, but afterwards I had two very poor reviews because, if I'm competely honest, I didn't deserve anything better. I held my hands up in both reviews and although I felt I'd been improving, he didn't see it that way.

Move forward to this review period, November to January. My boss, who was out of the office on sick leave for the first 5 weeks of it, pulled me aside on the Tuesday before Christmas to tell me that he's going to give me another poor review, and that I'll be kicked out of the company as no employee can have 3 poor reviews in a row. He had printed out a list of items that he'd been keeping track of related to my performance from the past 6 months and went through them, detailing how I'd more or less made a mess of each of them. He then gave me two options, leave amicably or wait for the inevitable poor review and get the sack. The amicable option involves me getting 2 months salary and a good reference, etc, etc, whereas the other option involves me leaving with nothing.

I argued that all of the items he raised in this review meeting actually occurred outside of this period (which they did), meaning they couldn't be used, and that if he gave me a poor review considering what I'd actually delivered (a sizeable list of achievements this time around as I have genuinely been putting a lot of effort in recently) I would contest it with HR. His answer was that any attempts I made at this would fail and that I'd be out the door with nothing. So, after an emotional discussion with my wife we decided to go with the amicable exit option as it's the lesser of two evils. My one caveat was that it would be treated as redundancy so that I could claim the dole and get the insurance paid on my personal loan. This is with HR at the moment and I don't know whether it will happen.

So, my questions revolve aorund the legality of this whole thing. Firstly, is it legal for him to threaten me like this? My review period hasn't even concluded and he's effectively threatened my job. He hasn't taken any of my actual achievements into consideration and is only concerned with getting rid of me. I was never told that if I get another poor review I'd be out the door, so this is all new to me. Secondly, if they don't agree the redundancy and accept his latest poor review of me, the result of which is me being sacked, can I contest this in court as unfair dismissal? Obviously I'm biased, but I would imagine the list of items I've delivered this quarter so far would clearly elevate my review status from poor to at least decent. It's clear he has it in for me and that I can do nothing right. I cannot work with him any more and want out, but will not accept anything other than redundancy.

Anyway, hoping someone can help me with these questions as this is the worst thing that's happened to me in my working life.

tenchi-fan

You admitted you slacked off for a period of at least 2-3 performance reviews.. what's that, 6-9 months?

Now your boss is willing to give you 2 months pay if you just quietly disappear, and HR will lie to the dole office and call it a redundancy?

Nevermind the legality of it, your boss is doing you a huge favour in my opinion.

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Your days are numbered at the company, you haven't being pulling your weight and you're no longer wanted. I think you should take the 2 months pay.

I do not get on with my boss. This is a situation that was brought on by myself about 9 months ago as my performances dropped, and I admitted in a review meeting that I was looking for other work because I couldn't move forward in my current role. My review wasn't too bad back then, but afterwards I had two very poor reviews

As for the legality, from the above, don't even worry. It wasn't the job for you.

As an employee you have certain rights but given your track record your employer could easily prove they abided by disciplinary procedures.

It might sound like I'm being harsh but I was in a similar situation once. I worked for idiots (RD) and the whole mess was their fault for the way they treated me and my fault for the way I acted. I took a verbal warning, but they could easily have given me the ultimatum you're facing (leave or get fired). I would have been annoyed, I would have questioned whether they went through appropriate procedures, but ultimately I would have just left with whatever they were offering me.

Just one thing.. ask for a written reference. Also get contact details from another manager/supervisor who will be willing to act as a referee.

LegacyUser

As Techni-fan suggests above....get references.

I've been job hunting with some interviews for the last few months - every single employer has asked me why I left my previous company, what happened. In my case, it was actually redundancy - the company is huge, but it downsized. I have a number of reasons as to why I took the redundancy route, all completely plausible and understandable in my industry. However, as I'm assuming you'll be job hunting too, you'd want to make sure you've a good explanation for potential employers - they don't want to hear a story like you've written there.

To be honest OP, though I'm not entirely sure about the legality of it in terms of how it would stand up in court....it reads like this to me.

You didn't perform for a period of months, leading to a bad review, in which you admitted you were looking for a new job (big mistake).
You then continued to perform badly, for a period of 2-3 reviews - what's that, 9-12 months??
3 reviews later, and by the sounds of things, at least 18 months (incl. the period prior to the first review), you can't understand why he has a poor opinion of you?

Unfortunately, I would imagine that because it's gone on for so long, they will focus on the poor side of things. I was in a situation in work once whereby, although I was working hard and consistently, giving my all to the job, a number of mistakes were being made.(as part of a team, unfortunately, my team partner was very careless). It didn't matter to management what I had done right....they only cared about what I did wrong, because (I quote)..."we know you and how you work, and we expect better of you". Which was true.They were right.My partner was new, and within about 15 months, he was let go from the company.Mistakes stopped.But I was left in no doubt that it could have gone very differently.

If I were you OP, I'd take the deal and start thinking about how you're going to explain this in an interview in the future.

LegacyUser

Thanks for the advice, but just thought I'd clear some things up. Firstly, it was 2 reviews that were not good, so a period of around 6 months. This is after having over 3 years of almost flawless reviews where I was always a top performer. Secondly, while I have held my hands up over those periods, I also have to hold my hands up and state that I have been making a serious effort in this particular period as I realised that I couldn't keep under-performing. I haven't actually worked as hard or made as much of an effort in this job since I lost interest.

My gripe revolves around being given a poor rating for this review period, which I don't deserve. My boss is not taking any of the good things I've delivered over the past 2 months into consideration and is basing this review on his personal opinion of me and how poorly I've performed for the previous two reviews, which surely can't be right? If this is the case there's nothing I can do to stop him.

As I said, it's clear he wants me out, but surely that's not enough of a reason for me to get the sack, particularly if I have been putting in a huge effort and have delivered tangible and measurable results? I wouldn't be complaining if I hadn't tried over the past 2 months but I genuinely have (and delivered), and that's where the problem is.

Nody

You're approaching it from the wrong angle; did you deliver what was agreed in your reviews that needed to be improved and was those improvements up to the expected level? It is great to have deliverables but what actually matters is if you delivered on the areas that was agreed in the reviews; not that you delivered in general in areas not agreed.

LegacyUser

Well this is the problem and where opinions are divided. He believes I didn't, whereas I believe I did. The only ammunition he was able to bring to the table against me in our meeting before Christmas was stuff that had already been dealt with in the previous two reviews. He was out of the office for most of this review period and has got it into my head that he wants me gone, and has brought these things forward stating that he can give me a bad review again based on these, which is what I'm finding ridiculous.

If I list the items I have delivered so far this quarter, he has no answer. My issue with him is that he wants me gone, so nothing I deliver will be to his standards. If I had delivered these items without this ongoing dispute, he would have been chuffed. I would also fully expect that an impartial, unbiased reviewer would find a common ground between both of us, stating that I don't deserve another poor review but don't deserve a great one, which would be fine as I can't expect to be getting a great review immediately after I've only really started pulling my weight again. But the key thing here is that I wouldn't be deserving of another poor review, which is what he's banking on because it means he can get rid of me.

I'm not looking for sympathy or anything here, this is my own mess and I'm just hoping to get the facts right before I decide what to do. If they don't offer me redundancy, I will contest his review of this period with a view to keeping my job, at least for the next quarter, because as I've already mentioned I have been pulling more than my weight for the past 2 months (after my last warning).

tenchi-fan

As previously said, you really don't have a leg to stand on. your employer can pick ANY element he is not happy with for the last quarter, and combined with two previous poor reviews use it as an excuse to fire you.

Not to mention he already made his decision.

Why don't you ask to meet with your manager one-on-one. Tell him you really want to keep the job, that you need the job, that you've delivered for the last quarter and you want one last chance. That's all you can do.

Welease

I'm not a HR rep.. but I have been a manager who has had to deal with non performing employees, and I don't believe it is quiet as simple as people are making out..

If you want to keep this job, then I would seek legal advice immediately from an employment specialist..

When I was working with employees with poor performance, at HR's insistance everything had to be documented and all goals had to be clear, achievable and documented.. There had to be no grey areas (like in your case where you believe you delivered and the manager believes you didnt). If there was a grey area that could be disputed, then the benefit would be given to the employee, as I would not be able to prove otherwise, and the employee could not be expected to achieve it.

All deliverables had to be documented within a specified time period and only those could be considered (not the ones previously like your manager has done) after a clear message had been given to the employee about the ramifications of not meeting the goals.

Whether this was my companies policies or law I am not sure (which is why you should seek proper advice), but in my case it was never a simple matter of he said, she said to get rid of an employee... every single item had to be documented, agreed, monitored and reported on... and any mistakes would nullify the process. As per the instructions of my HR rep.. any greys areas would not hold up in court....

falsers

He can't simply fire you for poor reviews, the reviews would have had to come with warnings, verbal, written and final warnings. You would have had to have several documented meetings with your manager and hr. The incidents he cited were outside of the review period so cannot be brought into it at all. Your performance indicators should be laid out clearly so it is obvious whether you improved or not.
I would be fairly certain this is not legal at all and if I were you I would seek legal advice or at the very least contact cit info.
The couple of months pay you're set to receive, how does that compare to an actual redundancy package? It sounds to me like they're trying to force people out on the cheap.

Eoin

falsers wrote: »

He can't simply fire you for poor reviews, the reviews would have had to come with warnings, verbal, written and final warnings. You would have had to have several documented meetings with your manager and hr. The incidents he cited were outside of the review period so cannot be brought into it at all. Your performance indicators should be laid out clearly so it is obvious whether you improved or not.

As far as I can tell, these are only recommended best practises (although some industries probably sign up to some common code of practice).

It's obviously in the company's best interests to make sure they've covered all the bases, but I've never seen anything in employment law that specifically states the process. All I've seen is that employment law recommends that disciplinary procedures and policies are put in place.

I agree with you in as far as that's how things should be done, but I'd be slow to say that each employer must follow the same steps.

lady of the flowers

@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }
As far as I know a dismissal will be considered unfair unless proved otherwise, which usually means verbal warning/disciplinary action etc as far as I can gather, although incompetency (which I imagine they would claim, may be under gross misconduct in your contract, which may constitute immediate dismissal, so look it up) I have recently been investigating employment law, and websites that are useful include: the citizens information website (easy to understand) they also have free appointments with employment lawyers that you can ring up and meet in the evening, entemp.ie the Nera website and irishstatue(for wording of the laws) and the Siptu website. Don't know much about redundancy but as far as I am aware they can't replace you and if they do then you can claim unfair dismissal or ask to be reinstated (or something....really know nowt about redundancy)
If you are let go, and wish to appeal, the time limit to have your case heard is 6MTHS and you appeal to the labour relations commission. (lrc.ie)
Keep a record of ALL meetings and what is said at them....also if you can perhaps ask if a work colleague can accompany you to your next review as a witness (I did not do this )
I don't know if your boss threatening you once is illegal (I hope it is) but if it happens more than once it could be classified as bullying under the health, safety and welfare at work act 2005.
Also you mention you have a HR department.....Perhaps speaking to them about the issues would sort some of them out (at this stage sounds like you don't have much to lose), it might be a good idea to have a grievance on record with them. Also I'm under the impression that if you get fired you can claim social welfare straight away (minus 3days or something) (although this is just something ppl have told me), but if you leave by choice you can't. Hope some of this helps and good luck (and I know that when I was dismissed, although initially devastated...it was a relief soon enough because work had become a nightmare). Good luck