Tag Archives: disciplinary
Sharon Shoesmith: guilt and unfair dismissal are two different things.
The papers are awash with articles about Sharon Shoesmith and Haringey Council. Ed Balls was Children’s Secretary in December 2008 when he publically called for Ms Shoesmith to be dismissed. Haringey Council obliged.
Sharon Shoesmith took her case to an employment tribunal claiming unfair dismissal. The Tribunal decided that she had not been unfairly dismissed. She appealed and three Appeal Court judges ruled that she was indeed unfairly dismissed. Since Friday the papers have been full of comments from all sides. According to an article on the BBC news website [1] David Cameron (Prime Minister) is uncomfortable with this decision and has stated that he believes elected ministers should be able to make decisions about their own departments. I totally agree with this statement. ALL managers should be able to make decisions about their own teams, BUT they must act within the law.
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Empower your managers: let them manage
We recently worked with a firm that had a strange management structure. We were asked to suggest corrective action when the incidence of disciplinary and grievance went sky-high.
The firm employed Regional Managers each responsible for several centres geographically spread across the UK. Each centre was managed by a Centre Manager. In any situation where the Centre Manager needed to exert his or her authority, the effect was diluted because Centre Managers were not allowed to discipline the staff under them. Only Regional Managers could discipline. Any appeals were heard by the Director, the Regional Managers’ boss.
