One of the most important things when terminating someone is the History of what has happened
We recently had a case where three people were being made redundant from an organisation. As much as we explored the reasons why, we could (and can) only act on the information we were given.
We coordinated all of the appropriate paper work, calculated the termination pays based on length of service, age, etc and made sure everything was aligned.
The day of the redundancies came and we personally explained the situation to each of the people (individually) together with the new CEO who had only been in the role for three months.
After the process I had phone calls of each of the people that we just let go. It seems as though the Managing Director of this organisation had left out some pretty important information; and the information would mean that redundancy was not actually the case. The information was this.
- Person 1. had been in an affair with MD twelve months prior which was suddenly broken off when MD’s spouse (who works in the business) found out. Since then Person 1 had been bullied and harassed by MD’s spouse to the stage she had taken time off work due to stress
- Person 2. Was in a relationship with one of MD’s children which was terminated by Person 2 approximately three months prior to the day of redundancy.
- Person 3. Had recently had five months off with Breast Cancer (she had been with the company for six years). She returned to work two months prior to find out she had been replaced and was then made redundant.
During our due diligence phase we try our best to uncover any information that may jeopardise the work we do or that my come back to bite us, however if someone chooses not to tell us what has happened, then it is almost impossible for us to know what is going on.
All three of these people will be claiming unfair dismissal.
Always be honest to the people who are there to help you in your situation.
HardDiscussions.com is an organisation that helps companies with moving people on. Its not a nice job but when done properly sees both the company and the ex-employee being able to progress to the next phase of their journey.
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