We were asked to advise a company about the fall-out from its Christmas office party. The party took place at a local hotel. At the party, one of the employees decided to tell his manager exactly what he thought of him. When the manager asked the employee not to discuss the issue there and then but to speak to him on the first day back at work in the New Year, the employee responded by punching the manager and breaking his nose. Despite the fact that the assault took place out of hours and away from the company's premises, the employee was dismissed under our guidance and the dismissal was held to be fair by an Employment Tribunal when the employee brought a Tribunal Claim.
We advised a language school where one of the teachers was persistently late. It was a requirement that the teachers arrived at least 15 minutes before lessons started. One particular teacher was always between 5 and 10 minutes late. This meant that the teacher often missed important staff announcements. It also meant that the teacher was not properly prepared and much of the first lesson was wasted in getting herself organised. We have been advising the school through the disciplinary process - the teacher is currently on a final written warning.
We acted for a small company that allowed its staff to work overtime unsupervised at weekends. This system worked completely on trust. The employees would put in claims for overtime and overtime payments were made. On one occasion, an employee was caught out when the fire alarm went off at a time when he claimed he had been in the office but he was not. The owner of the business had to attend to deal with the alarm. Upon checking the fire alarm records (which included the times when the alarm was disabled and set upon entering and leaving the office) it became clear that the employee had regularly claimed excessive amounts of overtime. In each case, the sums involved were not great. However, because trust had been broken, the employer dismissed the employee under our guidance. The dismissal was upheld at an Employment Tribunal when the employee brought a Tribunal claim.