unfair dismissal

[sallybb]

My brother and two others are going through the warning procedure at the moment on a weekly basis , at the debt collection company they work for. His job is creating mail to send onto debtors. He is meant to process 10 letters an hour. There are two things that hamper him , 1) There are often mistakes on the info , when he opens an account he has to back track to the dept that made the mistakes, before he can procede. His company tells him he shouldn't be correcting things. He tells them he has to to make sure the references , account nos etc are correct or the recipient just sends back the letter, because nothing tallies. 2) second prob he has, two years ago he had shingles, in the head, one eye was affected very badly , he had considerable time of , the blisters on the eye took a long time to heal. He still isnt 100 per cent. Still pain, itchyness, eye watering and focus problems. They have given a larger screen than the others ,which does help, but there is a lot of additional scrolling to look a documents, which makes him slower.
I have suggested he goes back to the doctor for a letter to say that his eye hasnt fully recovered and is still disabilitating . To give to the HR dept.
He lost his appeal last week with his first official warning and will get a second warning this week next unless he increases his average from 8.3 per hour to no less than 9.9 per hour. .. If they dismiss him do you think , he would have a case for unfair dismissal. Or are they jusified.. The others are having problems with wrong info. there also seems to be a staff leaving naturally that are not being replaced. Any advice I can pass onto him would be gratefully received.

[Eve]

How long has he worked there for?

ACAS could help advise him.

[sallybb]

Not sure how long he has work there, I think prob 5 years, wll suggest ACAS to him, Thanks

[dotty.]

How have they come to settle on this figure of productivity? How realistic is it? is he in a union? When you say he lost his appeal, do you mean he was disciplined over his performance? What does his staff handbook say?

[bednobs]

personally i would just do the letters with the info i was given

[pretty_snowdrop]

It is alright for them to suggest that he should increase his productivity from 8.3 to 9.9 but are they helping him in anyway to do this? If he is having problems an action plan should be put in place to assist him. If they have made sensible suggestions and he is ignoring them they might have a case, otherwise he needs to see the union.

[sallybb]

Dotty, no idea how. But the average was lower at one point, speaking to him earlier they just keep moving the goal post. They just tell him verbally never in writing about expectations. Apparently the computer picks up his average over a months period. Some weeks he delivers over the expectation others because of processing difficulties its down. Dont know if he is in union. Yes they think he is underperforming. Dont know if he has a staff book. He has been keeping his own log, making quick notes where encounters problems. They have no probs regarding his accuracy, attitude etc, just want more out of him..

Bednobs, both my husband and I have suggested the same. But he prides himself in accuracy, it may well be his downfall.

[boxtops]

Does he count as disabled because of his eyesight problem? His work do need to take account of that. However - some companies are different to others - at some if you are more productive than the manager, you seem to get the sack. Not everywhere is as fair as it should be!

[bednobs]

"His company tells him he shouldn't be correcting things"
but yet he still does?

[sallybb]

pretty snowdrop. They have not made any suggestions on how to improve. They said they have had words with the employees , whose mistkes he was correcting.but there has been no improvement.

A couple of weeks ago due to moving office around he lost his large screenr screen temporaily.and had to use smaller screen. He pointed out that it was too much strain on his eye and his vsion was blurring. He was told to go to the opticians and get new glasses. He already has new glasses. The problem is not sight but damage due to shingles and the smaller the writing puts to much strain on an eye that is still repairing. Caring lot aye!

[sallybb]

boxtops. not sure , can you get a temporary disabled status. His eye may never fully recover, but not sure it is severe enough to class as disabled.Im trying to get him to go to doctor, it might be worth him enquiring with GP

[boxtops]

I don't know - but an employer does have an obligation to make adjustments if people have poor eyesight.

[sallybb]

Phoned him just now, his going to look at ACAS site. and phone surgery tommorrow.

[pink-kittens]

I'm with bednobs, if they are telling him not to correct the info then tell him not to do it then he will get his 10 letters a month

[boxtops]

I guess I agree, but it would annoy me too to send out something not right - if he's told to work only with the info he's given, then just get on with it. Strange way of doing things...

[pretty_snowdrop]

But if he sends them out incorrect they will start saying he is not checking them correctly and start complaining about that.

[boxtops]

They've told him not to correct things, snowdrop, just send 'em.

[pretty_snowdrop]

Yeh they say that, but they will soon change their minds when they start getting complaints about it. However i do agree with you boxtops,I would send them out incorrect.

[boxtops]

It would drive me crazy to know they were wrong - what a waste of time!

[jno]

I totally agree, boxtops, but basically his job is to do things wrong. So that's what he should do. Or look for work with employers who prefer to do things right.

[pretty_snowdrop]

That is how these places operate. Each department will have a target which they have to adhere to. All these incorrect letters are another departments responsibility that is why he is told not to correct them. The supervisors will get a bigger bonus if all the staff meet their target, hence why they tell him to speed up.