sacking employee?

[rugeleyboy]

i will be sacking a girl who works for me on monday, lovely girl and all that but she just doesnt quite get it and after 6 months still doesnt know the basics that go with the job?

i understand she cant sue me for unfair dismissal as she has not been employed by me for 12 months, i am ahead with any holiday pay she is allowed as she has had 3 weeks off fully paid, i will be paying her for 2 more weeks while she is NOT required to work., but basicly i will be paying her to find a new job.

i cant be fairer than that can I?

have i missed anything?

[buildersmate]

Sounds extremely fair to me.
Be prepared for tears, so be ready with the tissue box.
Suggest the use of the word dismissal, not sack. Sacking someone is what readers of The Sun like to hear about.

[rugeleyboy]

we had the tears on friday buildersmate, i have even had the emotional blackmail..ie. i cant imagine not having a job this side of christmas?

but she just doesnt get it??

[pink-kittens]

Or even better 'letting you go' sounds good
Poor thing but if she doesn't know the basics after 6 months there is no hope :(

[dot.hawkes]

I don't know what employment laws you work with but we can't sack/dismiss anyone even during their probationary period, we can only offer support and retraining, if we have recruited properly the situation shouldn;t arise.

[rugeleyboy]

fair comment dot but as an SME i dont have the backing/finance or time as the big boys so we only use the basic employment law set out by the government?

but seriously if you work in a paper shop you would have known the price of a mars bar wouldnt you?

[Ethel]

dot - that must be company policy because it certainly isn't employment law

[JB]

Is it as simple as you say? That she literally doesn't know the price of a single, popular item after 6 months, or is that just a very simplistic example? If it really is that bad, then you've obviously got to let her go. But (and I have worked in shops!) there is nothing more annoying than items appearing with no price on them (without warning and without an EPOS till!)
You've obviously got to do the right thing for your business, but spare a thought for her and her future - could you have done anything differently? And how will she fare in future employment having been sacked (albeit for not knowing the price of a mars bar!)

[rugeleyboy]

without describing my business (it would be very easy to identify me in real life if i said what i did),the products we sell are very basic...... it's far from aldi where you have to memorise everything, but, my mars bar explanation pretty much covers it.

[pink-kittens]

I don't know how much a mars bar is - but do i need to even if I work for you? Don't you have EPOS?

[rugeleyboy]

no, we really are a very basic company that you really need a calculater to work out prices, there is a price list that you look at everyday.....in all fairness i dont really look at the price list because i know probably 95% of the prices on there?

i understand i own the company but if you looked at item "A" for 6 months and for those 6 months item "A" is �9.20 it really should sink in shouldnt it?

[THECORBYLOON]

So then, you own the company and you don't know all the prices and folk have to look at the price list every day, is that correct? You're sacking someone and that'll mean recruiting someone else and getting them trained. It seems odd that you need a calculator to work out the totals, is there not a till? No EPOS and no til seems a poor waste of resources to me , what business do you run?

[rugeleyboy]

good point well raised TCL but the prices i dont know and have to use a calculator are for multiple items that sell by the metre or cube.

i dont need to spend thousands on a EPOS system when i dont really have a major use for one.

Are you going to tell me that every small business you visit has the set up of a multi national?

[Panic Button]

In my company there seems to be a succession of people who work in the office, and can't hack it for one reason or another.

Sorry, but if she's not up to the job she has to go.

You are not a charity. Don't worry about it.

[THECORBYLOON]

I used to work on a section that had hundreds of different forms but there were a fair few that we used all the time. I thought that I'd never get to grips wi them but one day it just seemed to click wi me.

Is it not better to gie this person one more chance, considering the time and money invested so far?

[cassa333]

You have to take her knowledge base of 6 months and put it against other employees of 6 months. If she is so inadequate then she has to go. If however she is the first employee you have ever had or they always end up this way then your system needs a bit of an overhaul.

[THECORBYLOON]

Consider where she will be in a month's time, knowing that she has to improve in that time, compared to a split new employee.

[peggys--dad]

Don't they put bar codes on the wrappers now that tell you the price?

[Doc.Spock.1]

What is an SME ???????????

[Doc.Spock.1]

and a bl00dy EPOS

[THECORBYLOON]

SME= small and medium-sized enterprises, bloody EPOS= bloody electronic point of sale