How hard is it to fire someone

Marymoore

I was wondering how hard it is to fire someone in the public sector? Say you knew they were dossing or taking much longer lunch breaks, could you fire them? Is it as simple as if you don’t want them you can let them go or is it hard?

Iscreamkone

Public sector?

They’d have to have stolen something valuable. I remember in my time in a local authority a lad was getting work done on his house and used an order book from work. How he thought he’d get away with that I don’t know. They didn’t sack him but gave him the opportunity to resign.

You’d find it very difficult to sack someone who was just doing their job poorly. Half the place could be sacked if that criteria was used.

Marymoore

thanks for the reply… what about if you were skipping work and only turning up half the days

standardg60

Make that three threads!

Marymoore

4 actualy..

Marymoore

go worry about ur own stuff

RonanG86

Unless they're relatively new, and whomever they're reporting to has had the minerals to refuse to sign off on their probation, the answer is it's possible, but will probably take ages.

That being said, if someone is literally not turning up (are they office based?) when they're supposed to, that might make it a bit more expedient. Is the person pulling sickies (6 uncerts in 3 years is the max), claiming they have COVID, burning up all their annual leave, or just shrugging when they're asked where they were yesterday?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122122013#Comment_122122013

You can be sure senior management already know and are unwilling to deal with it. You could of course ask your boss.

extra-ordinary_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122122025#Comment_122122025

oh the irony

Ted222

The answer is that it’s possible but it firstly depends on the will of the organisation to do so.

After that, it can be tricky if the person has been in place for more than 12 months. Underperformance to a level that warrants dismissal is a difficult measure to establish. Not turning up however is a fairly serious offence which could be escalated quite quickly if there’s sufficient interest.

It sounds like the individual has been given free rein over a long period of time and is taking advantage. It’s a failure of management as well as any personal shortcoming on the part of the individual.

Flinty997

I've seen it a handful of times. They were managed out. Given awful jobs and no promotion or increments. Almost all left eventually.

I am me123

As far as I can tell from my knowledge of employment law, an employee can be 'let go', for a reason, or no reason during the probationary period, with no employment rights until after 12 months service.

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316340#Comment_122316340

They can, but the discrimination laws still apply.

I worked in a company where an man maybe 15 years older than the rest of our team was hired. A few months in we determined it wasn't working out, but HR wanted a whole lot of actions from us so that when we eventually let him go, he couldn't say we did it due to his age.

Remember no company wants their name in the paper over something like this, so never think you have a free pass within the probation period.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316400#Comment_122316400

But neither does an employee! And these days with agencies do background checks and needed to justify their fee, a lot of stuff can come back to haunt someone.

Rescue Blues

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122122056#Comment_122122056

I'm public sector and we get 4 uncerts (self certs) a year. That would 12 in 3 years. There are specific rules as to how you can take them though. I don't think there's many employees who don't use all 4 days each year.

There's a well known story about one employee in the company who took no sick days throughout his whole career. Close to retirement he went up to have a meeting with the head manager along with a union rep. They asked if there was anything they could do to acknowledge this. He was told 'no', and that "those days are there to be taken"!

yagan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122136742#Comment_122136742

I worked for a semi state once where I was hired just to look after one particular project that would run for a few years. I loved the project, it was great and suited my career but as the project was finishing I was told by my immediately line manager that I'd be brought into HQ, given a desk and probably told to just count pencils as they didn't have anything else that suited me.

In fairness once I said no thanks they let me take my time lining something else up. That line manager was pretty much watching the clock until his retirement.

Flinty997

I think that's different just killing time until the next bus arrives. Be that retirement or a new job.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122535950#Comment_122535950

"I don't think there's many employees who don't use all 4 days each year."

That's not my experience. Almost all of my team and colleagues don't use all four days each year. Those who do use all four days each year tend to have significant underlying health issues.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122535988#Comment_122535988

Posts like this would routinely be recruited as fixed term specific purpose contracts, so when the project finishes, the employee departs.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122536241#Comment_122536241

How many of those are genuinely fixed term project, though. The engineer might be, they're probably building something specific. But the public arts and literacy needs are not going away at the end of N years.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122546425#Comment_122546425

That's true - more to do with funding restrictions and government priorities that the term of the need.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122536241#Comment_122536241

That's not my experience. Almost all of my team and colleagues don't use all four days each year. Those who do use all four days each year tend to have significant underlying health issues.

The organizations staffed by people out to grab as much as possible - and willing to risk the education, welfare and health of Irish citizens in strike action to do so - are giving up free money?

Pull the other one.

Edit:

Just confirms my point, post #7 here https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122545668/

Flinty997

What did the Romans ever do for us eh?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122547829#Comment_122547829

It's just a bit silly to keep banging on with the tired old trope that tries to position public service staff as some kind of different race with different motivations to others. Don't most employees, public and private sector, want to "grab as much as possible"? Aren't all those calls for small government and reduced taxation 'willing to risk the education, welfare and health of of Irish citizens'? This kind of stereotyping is fairly lame.
Public servants aren't a different race. They're a broad church, with all kinds of different motivations. The main thing they have in common would be that if they really wanted to 'grab as much as possible', they'd be working elsewhere.
You've clearly no personal experience of sick leave practices within public service.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122558194#Comment_122558194

It's a well deserved reputation as evidenced by one of your colleagues in the other thread I linked to.

Those in the food sector don't withhold food from you if a cut in tax is not given. Likewise your plumber, etc.

Where as the public employees actively cheered on withholding their services on these forums unless the Government give into their demands in the last pay talks, targeting the children and the sick.

The morals and motivation of the public sector employees is miles apart from the hard working private sector. Don't kid yourself. Civil servants are more than willing to defraud the state and use sick leave for additional annual leave. Everyone knows what goes on.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122558380#Comment_122558380

I'm not sure if you've heard of the concept of 'strikes' or 'industrial disputes', where staff withdraw their labour which generally result in withholding of services, whether that's flights abroad or call centre phone answering or indeed (in contradiction of your claim) plumbing services; https://www.thejournal.ie/construction-site-strike-august-2024-6471797-Aug2024/
You may also have missed the fact that the last couple of decades have largely been peaceful in terms of industrial disputes in the public sector.
If the best you have to rely on is 'everyone knows', the standard Liveline trope, you're not getting very far.
As for morals and motivation, wait till you find out about how many people work in both sectors, sometimes at the same time, and sometimes chopping and changing sectors as suits them. They're the same people

Yeah, I heard of industrial disputes. It's a handy pretence for those mostly earning in the upper echleons of the scale to target the vulnerable in society and strong arm Governments into caving into demands. It turns my stomach.

StormForce13

"…..the upper echleons of the scale…" suggests a reading age of 12.

Why try to use big words when it's clear that you (a) don't understand their meaning and (b) can't even spell them correctly?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122559351#Comment_122559351

You really don't seem to understand industrial disputes. Industrial disputes happen in the private sector. Like pilots, and plumbers, and call centre operators. Maybe you'd like to expand on how those disputes involve 'targeting the vulnerable' and 'strong arming Governments into caving in'?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122560167#Comment_122560167

They don't because generally speaking those in the private sector have greater morals than the public. That's my point. Nurses for example are quite willing to let cancer patients suffer while they stand at the hospital entrance. Sickening.

If the private sector had the same morals as the public, we'd be facing food, fuel, clothing shortages every time there was a grievance against employers or the government.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122576168#Comment_122576168

Either you have no clue about how industrial disputes in health services work, in terms of protecting essential services, or you're just blatantly lying. But yeah, please do tell us more about the greater morals of the financial services staff that bankrupted our country, and tech staff that are addicting our children to their devices while sucking every available spark of power off our grid, and the pharma staff that are addicting the population to all kinds of medication, and actively ensuring that actual causes of medical conditions aren't addressed. This should be fun.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122576423#Comment_122576423

Thanks for providing me with more examples of the continuity of supply we can depend on from private employees! Quite a world apart from the shambles, money grabbing government employees, quick to hold fellow - the most vulnerable citizens - as pawns against the Government.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/cardiac-and-cancer-surgeries-cancelled-due-to-nurses-strike-1.3786012

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122576466#Comment_122576466

Are you avoiding the question about the stronger morals then?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122576474#Comment_122576474

With your help, I've given numerous examples of how the greater sense of integrity and morals we see from private workers ensure a continuity of supply and service unmatched from public.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122576489#Comment_122576489

So morals = continuity of supply?

Perhaps you'd like to look up the dictionary definition of morals and we can pick this up tomorrow?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122576494#Comment_122576494

Yes. As in you don't withdraw services from those who need it most in order to grease your own grubby paws. It's clear you prioritize nurses greed - despite being paid above average - over those with cancer says a lot about you, and your kind. The fact you are on here defending the worst from government employees shows you for what you are, a quack.

Still no comment from you on one of your colleagues on another thread suggestion to defraud the state and claim uncertified sick leave in order to attend a funeral?

Of course, nurses striking when ill won't affect you. You're the kind of coward singing the praises of all things great about government employees, defending their work and integrity but will take out private healthcare to cover your own ass, just as we could expect from a hypocrite.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122576515#Comment_122576515

This might be bad news but 'morals' does not equal 'continuity of supply'. There is no definition in the entire world of morals that matches your petty, self-serving attempt to redefine a word to suit your agenda. There are lots of definitions of morals; here's one from; https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/morals
"Morals are the prevailing standards of behavior that enable people to live cooperatively in groups. Moral refers to what societies sanction as right and acceptable."
So no, morals does not equal continuity of supply, outside of your head anyway.
You choose to ignore the questions of morality of entire sectors of private industry. You choose to ignore the fundamental objective of private industry being to create value for shareholders, nothing to do with morality there. You ignore the fact that many people switch between public and private sectors and back again over the course of their career. Do these people redirect their entire moral compass every time they change jobs?
It's a nonsense proposition - but if you do want to go there, let's give it a shot. Where was the morality of the private sector Aer Lingus pilots, causing people to miss overseas operations, miss family funerals, destroying weddings that had been planned for years in advance? Where's the morality of the 27 pages of drug shortages caused by the pharma sector? https://www.hpra.ie/homepage/medicines/medicines-information/medicines-shortages/shortages-list
Where's the morality in the strike by barristers, delaying criminal trials and leaving criminals out on the street? Where's the morality in the Jones Engineering strikers delaying works on the National Children's Hospital and important pharma projects? Where's the morality in the plumbers, fitters, welders and apprentices on construction projects striking and holding up housing projects at a time of the biggest housing crisis for a century? Where's the morality in the phone support staff at Kyndryl striking and stopping people from sorting out their essential gas connections and banking services? Where's the morality in the Tarbert Power Station staff striking at a time of critical and high cost energy supply for the whole country?
Please explain how your simplistic 'strong morals = private sector = continuity of supply' principles apply to the real world in the light of these examples?

sudocremegg

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122576515#Comment_122576515

Shut up and log off you clown.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122578298#Comment_122578298

Thanks for proving my point for me!! All these isolated disputes and the general public at large unaffected by them.

If private sector disputes behaved like those from government employees, retail would refuse people food, oil and gas deliveries would be halted in the depth of winter, those manufacturing and delivering drugs would prevent people access to them. People would be unable to leave or depart the country. None of which you manged to capture in your quite impressive list.

It's almost like there's benefits in having distributed sources of supply so that one group of degenerates don't get to use their monopoly to specifically target the most vulnerable in society the way government employees have done and repeatedly threaten to do so. None of the drug shortages you refer to was a result of employees refusing to work.

Of course, you know the dangers of relying on state healthcare and the people who work in it. That's why you take the coward's way out and purchase private healthcare despite all your grandstanding on this site.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122579012#Comment_122579012

The 'general public at large' was unaffected by the Aer Lingus strike, but yet the general public at large was somehow affected by a small number of deferred medical procedures? Don't suppose you'd like to show your workings there. It's really funny to see you shifting your goalposts desperately as each of your nonsensical claims is pointed out. Where's the monopoly of medical services, btw? Presumably you've heard about the private medical sector, which for all it's faults, does actually exist? Oh yes, you mentioned private healthcare just two lines after you mentioned 'their monopoly', directly contradicting yourself within the same post.

And how did you decide that morality was just about 'refusing to work'? You said that morality = continuity of supply, but there's obviously a huge amount of supply problems there. Where's the morality in hiking up drug prices to extreme levels totally unaffordable to all but the privileged few, and also milking money out of governments desperate to do their best for unwell people - in other words, an average day's work in the pharma sector. How come your beloved private sector staff of 'stronger morals' have no difficulty in creaming governments?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122579615#Comment_122579615

Yep, there were plenty of alternatives the time of the Aer Lingus strike. Again, you are proving my point for me. If private employees behaved the same way as public employees, all air travel would have been stopped completely. But it wasn't. Because those working in alternative airlines continued to do their jobs just like they were paid to do and tried their best to assist the traveling public.

For those relying on the public system and ill were indeed stuck there at the time of the nurses strikes. Not like they could pick up the phone and drive themselves to the nearest alternative hospital as they watched the nurses turn their back and walk off the wards. Are you saying those patients affected had a choice? Could you explain how they could have avoided being caught up as a result of that strike action? It wasn't a small number of deferred medical procedures.

You're right, when governments enter contracts to buy drugs for a set price, the employees continue to work each day to ensure the demand is met and at that price. You can be sure if government employees were responsible for manufacturing all drugs, the supply would be impacted by strike action at any time.

When governments enter contracts with their workers, it is unknown how much will be lost to strike action, fraud and generally waste (I refer again to your colleague in the other thread and the black hole that is the HSE greasing many grubby and greedy paws in the management layers)

It's clear to me which group of employees is morally superior.

Maybe you don't see that. Or actually maybe you do, because when it comes to YOUR health, you're not so quick to rely on the staff you jump to the defence of in the state Health System and instead rely on those who don't take industrial action in the private hospitals making your grandstanding on this site total hypocrisy.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122580076#Comment_122580076

'Plenty of alternatives'? I take it you didn't see all the news coverage of people stranded, of people losing half of their wedding parties, of people who missed their appointments for life saving operations?

What public service 'was stopped completely' btw?

I presume you're just going to ignore the question of drug pricing creaming money out of governments for greedy pharma execs, just like you ignored the question of the finance industry leaders with 'strong morals' that bankrupted our country sending us cap in hand to the IMF?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122580495#Comment_122580495

You're a hypocrite who condones fraud from your colleagues. I'm not explaining the differences to you anymore. If you can't understand, that's an issue with you.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122580624#Comment_122580624

It didn't really stand up to scrutiny, did it? The whole 'morals = continuity of supply' nonsense?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122580638#Comment_122580638

Why then do you trust your health with the morally superior private providers? Worried that you'll be caught out and denied healthcare in the public system, worried about the continuity of supply you could expect?

The fact that you have covered yourself by private insurance proves the very point I'm making 🤣

You don't have to explain any more, you have proven my point perfectly. Thank you!

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122580719#Comment_122580719

The fairly obvious answer as to why many people use private health services in Ireland, about 50%, compared to about 15% in the UK, is because of backlogs and queues due to underfunding. People die waiting for access to underfunded public services here, so lots of people who can afford private health insurance will take it. It's nothing to do with the supposed morals or otherwise of staff on either side.

I can imagine that you're quite keen that I don't explain any more, given that each of your claims has been exposed as nonsense. It's only inside your head that morals = continuity of supply. The real world is just a bit more complex than that, where your simplistic claims appear nonsensical and childish.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122582007#Comment_122582007

Thanks for proving my point! Maybe I didn’t explain it very well, but you're the perfect example of the point I was trying to make.

Public health is not underfunded. That leaves staff as the explanation. The very point I was making.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122582018#Comment_122582018

Thanks for proving my point about simplistic claims that appear nonsensical and childish.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122582145#Comment_122582145

I bet you you're not going to test out the simplistic claims and bet your health on public health staff though will you 😁

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122582174#Comment_122582174

And off we go again;

AndrewJRenko

Look at all these dreadful low morals private sector plumbers and fitters leaving their essential sites with no continuity of supply.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0906/1468613-strike-action/

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122576168#Comment_122576168

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha