Just to let you know, that sometimes problem staff really do resign without us having to follow the long process to fire them!

The employee in question was approaching the end of her maternity leave. As she normally worked at a third-party site, we informed them that she would be back on site in the next couple of weeks. Whereupon the third-party client informed us that they didn’t want her back at all, but they would take another cleaner.

If they had given us objective reasons we could have worked with that. As it is they gave no reason at all. We suspected racial discrimination and advised them that she would be returning. If there were performance issues they should let us know and we would take action. All other reasons that were not objective would be ignored.

So she came back to work, had her refresher training on how to clean, and off she went. Unfortunately, within the shortest time there were problems. The third-party client reported that this employee had been in the toilet for one hour during her (two hour) shift. When questioned, she gave no reason why other than she didn’t realise it had been that long. Then she was seen to use the the sponge she had used to clean the bins on the kitchen utensils. Eughh!

With a performance problem we started the disciplinary process – she had been there more than 2 years – and invited her to a disciplinary meeting. Whereupon she promptly resigned!!

This was a perfect solution to the problem. Getting an invite to a disciplinary is not constructive dismissal. She may try and claim this, but no lawyer will do a “no win, no fee” case on this basis.

So the third-party client is happy, as she is not on site. The employer is happy because she resigned rather than us having to do a lengthy disciplinary and training process.

And we are happy because another client problem has been solved!