Career Doctor Articles

With the kind permission of the Career Doctor, jfo is able to bring you a series of articles to help you in your work situation and longer term career management

Resign – or be dismissed

At some time or another in your career there is a good chance that you will have some form of confrontation with your manager that will lead to either or both parties thinking that the only solution to the problem will be your departure from the company. Today you will read this article and think that this will never happen to you, but it probably will at some point in the future. I can say this with a considerable degree of certainty, for after 30 years as both an HR manager and as a career consultant I have encountered this on many, many occasions, listening to horrifying employment stories from employees, managers, directors and clients.

In this article I will examine what you can or should do about dealing with a confrontational situation that is threatening your continued employment.

TYPICAL PROBLEMS

We have all experienced disagreements with our boss in work-related matters, and sometimes these can get out-of-hand, creating an unpleasant atmosphere that makes going to work an ordeal. “Personality clashes” are very common, often beginning when your old boss is promoted, retires, or finds other employment. The replacement has “inherited” you and may not have such a good feeling about you as your former boss. Usually the new boss wants to recruit new staff who will be loyal to him / her, and so you, “the old guard,” stand in the way.

One of the main problems in employment is accusations that you have broken the company rules. If you have, and have been found out, you have a big problem. But what if the accusations are false or malicious? In all instances the only options for you will be “fight or flight”. If you want to fight, then make sure you get professional help, quickly (see below).

Other problems occur when new technology, working methods, policies and procedures are introduced. Such reorganisations, sometimes involving major changes like moving offices to another town, will inevitably cause friction. As a former Employee Relations Manager I was always heavily involved in ensuring the people aspects of these reorganisations were as trouble-free as possible. But you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and inevitably there was often someone who felt aggrieved enough to resign “on principle”.

But principles don’t pay the mortgage, so what can you do if you are faced with confrontation, accusations or a reorganisation that will seriously affect your continued employment?

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

First, a brief outline of your legal rights. In general if you have been in continuous employment for at least one year, then, if you wish, you are entitled to take any claim for your perceived Unfair Dismissal to an Employment Tribunal. There are some exceptions to the one-year qualifying period (complaints against your employer concerning sex, race, trade union membership, etc).

You should also be aware of your right to claim Constructive Dismissal (where your employer’s treatment of you is so wrong that it has forced you to resign, even though you did not want to do so). This is quite a complex subject and one that I will return to in a later article.

In my consultancy I help many people who have been dismissed, and there are very few who go all the way, legally. There are other ways of dealing with dismissal, if that is your fate.

Before things get this far, many people would rather choose the “flight”option and simply resign to avoid further aggravation. This can be the best option, but most people would rather resign when they have another job to go to, so a premature resignation is not always a good idea, from a financial point of view.

It is certainly a better idea to try to sort out any disagreements at work by using the company’s internal systems. If your employer has an HR department, this should be your second port-of-call – after first trying to resolve it, face-to-face with your manager. Remember that you get more bees with honey than you do with vinegar, so start off by being calm, professional and reasonable. You can resort to shouting or crying if you must, but those tactics will almost certainly worsen the problem.

If the problem has not been solved by your manager or HR, then your third port-of-call could be the company’s grievance procedure (if it has one), and if that fails then seek professional and impartial advice (see below)

YOUR EMPLOYER’S OPTIONS

Your employer has most of the aces, specialist people, time and money to afford top legal advice, so in a direct confrontation between you and them, it is likely that the company will win any disputes. How winning is defined is another issue!

It can demote you, transfer you, promote you, ignore you (hoping you will resign) or it can take the formal disciplinary route, depending on the circumstances and the desired result.

If it chooses to take the disciplinary route you will almost inevitably lose, unless its actions and procedures are so amateurish or biased that it leaves itself open to a successful claim for Unfair Dismissal by you

GETTING HELP

So if you are facing an unpleasant situation at work which looks as though your only options are resigning or being dismissed, you should seek some form of professional help, quickly. Many of the people who come to me have already been dismissed, and I often wish they had sought my help before their dismissal, as I am sure I could have made a big difference to the outcome (or the pay-off)

If you are a member of a trade union, that would be a natural starting point, but if you are not in a union, then who else can help you? Perhaps you have a friend or relative who is in HR and who could advise you. Contact your local Citizens Advice Bureau who has access to legal opinion, as does your nearest branch of ACAS. Sometimes your local priest can help, as may your MP.

I would advise contacting any of these before you reach for the phone book to make an appointment to see a solicitor. Remember that you have three months after your dismissal before your entitlement to lodge a claim for Unfair Dismissal expires, so there is usually no immediate rush to engage a solicitor. And unless you have plenty of spare money, remember that legal help can be very expensive indeed.

Over the years I have advised and supported many clients who have been dismissed and I start by preparing a game plan to help them deal with their situation. There are many options one can take and finding the best permutation of ideas can take quite a while. I have got clients their jobs back, turned dismissals into “redundancy” (helps when applying for new jobs and in qualifying for mortgage protection), convinced employers to substantially increase payments – and in one recent case convinced an employer to pay my client many thousands of pounds so that he could resign after they demoted him. He never worked in the demoted role.

Good luck!

The Career Doctor is Eric Hearn, Chartered MCIPD and Managing Director of Milverton Career Solutions Ltd, Ascot, Berkshire, UK.

Contact details:
Tel: 01344 624383
Email: milvertoncareers@btconnect.com
Website: www.careerdevelopment.co.uk