Employment Question.

[DTCwordfan]

Take one friend of mine - he runs a small manufacturing company, along with his marketing and sales. Turnover about 3/4 a mill. Employees approximately 10 and can expand on demand.

Rightly or wrongly no contracts.......so deemed contracts instead.

Take their production manager, and a row last Thursday that has been brewing, the prod manager having been overtly aggressive in his manner with several of the staff. Also has tended to do his own thing when it comes to order prioritisation etc. No formal warnings that I an aware of but a number of chiding sessions.

Anyway, this time, the friend leaves specific instructions on how to handle a number of orders that they have in, one of them being for a client who owes them over £3k, that one, rightly, going to the back of the queue until he coughs up.

So what does the production manager do but counter the instructions (witnessed by the way), moves it all the way up and its shipped before the Owner knows.

He's called in, there's a bit of a verbal set-to over this, and his attitude. The production manager storms out and is not seen on Friday (to the delight of the factory staff).

My advice over the w.end was to give him a formal warning in writing.

He doesn't show yesterday or today.

Is this an acceptable grounds for sending him his p45 along with a cheque for outstanding wages, the wages due tomorrow?

Many thanks.

[thugulike]

To dismiss without a disciplinary investigation and meeting will be automatically unfair dismissal. Having no contract of employment will also be added to the offences. Get the contracts in place and the disciplinary procedure and use the procedure. No quick fix, just do it properly or it will cost you.