ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by Mr_Tigger

I believe Fox is not simpley talking about the legal and compensatory cost of actually making people redundant but additionally the impact the possibility of incurring those costs in future has on the willingness of a business to take on the risk of expansion and job creation. Logically this is the case, but just like with minimum wage it is impossible to calculate how many jobs are not created as a result. If you take the M-W definition that intellectualism is 'The theory that knowledge is wholly or mainly derived from pure reason', then it is a perfectly 'intellectually based' position.

That is not an empirical doctrine. Long back when before the time of the minimum wage there was still such a thing as unemployment.

If an employer does not have sufficient confidence that they are capable of employing staff and then behaving within the confines of the law in their dealings with them, then they are probably not fit to be employing people and fully deserve to have their profits eroded.

The idea that employers should be exempt from legal compliance because they are fearful that they might break the law is not a particularly good reason for repealing the laws!

Originally Posted by Wordsmith

I also would have saved a lot of damage because in order to prove he was not capable of the job, I had to continue letting him ruin equipment.

Destruction of company property - gross misconduct - instant dismissal.

Originally Posted by Wordsmith

We were then taken to an industrial tribunal and greeted by a smiling 'no-win, no-fee' lawyer who said we could settle for £5K out of court or spend £10K fighting and winning the case in front of the tribunal. We settled because it was cheaper to the business - and despite the worker not deserving it.

Why would you have paid £10k fighting the case? If you had done your job properly and kept an adequate record of your ex-employee's performance, and presented this to the tribunal with a written explanation, this would have been suffice.

You should not believe everything a lawyer tells you! Most of them are lying, swindling bastards.

Originally Posted by Pyianno

The default attitude of employers in England, especially of low paid staff, is: "it is my company, these are my employees, I should be able to do whatever I want!"

That this attitude rather accurately reflects that which once existed between the Serfs and their Feudal Lords in Russia has seemingly escaped the attention of some! I recommend those who would like a greater understanding of the fallacy of this attitude read the brilliant dream sequence in Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment'.

And the default attitude of a significant part of those low paid employees is 'I will do as little work as I can get away with'. A good manager will motivate his employees and get the best possible performance from them. A bad one will use fear as a motivational tool - and cause resent as a result.

But even allowing for the fact that bad management can lie behind the problem, there has to be a mechanism to get rid of the 'worst-case' under-performing workers without going through all the rigmarole of formal disciplinary procedures and industrial tribunals. Lets be blunt about it - getting rid of a poorly performing worker is a big distraction from making a company run as efficiently as possible. Given the choice, most managers would want to devote their time to problem solving/expanding their order book.

I've run everything from small companies to large departments. I don't want to waste my time on the formal way of getting rid of an under-performing worker if there is a simpler 'no-fault' way of getting rid of that worker - that provides fair compensation to that worker. I have to think of the wider needs of the business - and the other people who depend on it for a living. They deserve consideration too...

Wordsmith

And it's "you're fired", not "your fired".

Originally Posted by Wordsmith

But even allowing for the fact that bad management can lie behind the problem, there has to be a mechanism to get rid of the 'worst-case' under-performing workers without going through all the rigmarole of formal disciplinary procedures and industrial tribunals. Lets be blunt about it - getting rid of a poorly performing worker is a big distraction from making a company run as efficiently as possible. Given the choice, most managers would want to devote their time to problem solving/expanding their order book.

If you cannot produce evidence as to why you have reasonably dismissed somebody then you should have no legal right to dismiss them once they have worked beyond the two years qualifying period. Within this period they do not, except in highly specific circumstances, have the right of appeal to the employment tribunal anyway.

The current system is perfectly adequate. If you are incapable of producing evidence to justify the fact that you have taken a decision which will potentially have a severe impact on the life of the person you have taken it against, then you shouldn't be employing people.

Originally Posted by Pyianno

Why would you have paid £10k fighting the case? If you had done your job properly and kept an adequate record of your ex-employee's performance, and presented this to the tribunal with a written explanation, this would have been suffice.

You should not believe everything a lawyer tells you! Most of them are lying, swindling bastards.

We had adequate records - I'd even taken advice from a specialist employment advisory service. My case was legally watertight.

But in management, there never is enough time to consider every decision carefully. Would the lawyer have made good his threat and dragged things out in front of the tribunal? Who knows?

I did what 90% of managers/business would do. Took the apparently cheaper option of settling out of court and went back to my day job of making the best profit I could for the department I ran. Paying out £5K wrote off (lets say) one months profit. Winning and writing off £10K would have written off two months profits.

That's the way the world works...

Wordsmith

Originally Posted by Wordsmith

We had adequate records - I'd even taken advice from a specialist employment advisory service. My case was legally watertight.

But in management, there never is enough time to consider every decision carefully. Would the lawyer have made good his threat and dragged things out in front of the tribunal? Who knows?

I did what 90% of managers/business would do. Took the apparently cheaper option of settling out of court and went back to my day job of making the best profit I could for the department I ran. Paying out £5K wrote off (lets say) one months profit. Winning and writing off £10K would have written off two months profits.

That's the way the world works...

Wordsmith

So why would it have cost you £10k?