Legal Matters

Many employees will also take the opportunity to launch a grievance procedure, and the employee also has a right to an appeal if his or her grievance isn’t upheld. Employees also have a right to be accompanied by a trade union representative at every stage of these processes, and it makes no difference that there are few veterinaryspecific trade unions.

Employees can, and will, join any big union as they have that right. Unions used to insist on a six-month period after joining before agreeing to send a union representative to an internal disciplinary or grievance hearing, but that is no longer the case as employees can join up and secure accompaniment straight away. Veterinary employees use these rights, often to their employers’ surprise.

The good news is that trade union representatives are not really anything to worry about if you have done your homework and have a proper paper trail. They can be managed easily enough, but you should have your own representative present, not a voice at a call centre following a flow chart.

Poor staff, poor business

Not only can you remove poor staff without it taking years, but you really should. If you don’t, you could lose good staff and possibly waste hours of management time, and that’s worth approximately £100 per hour.

Do not be fooled by very cautious advice – business comes first, employment law comes second. Do not let employment law run your business. What is needed is a detailed risk-managed approach as, at the end of the day, each and every employment law dispute is resolved by money. If you pay out, for example, six months’ salary to remove a poor member of staff instead of continuing to employ him or her because you fear the employment tribunal, you have secured a victory.

One practice lost approximately £100,000 on salary for an awful employee who had effectively damaged the business’ reputation over 15 years. Perhaps even more significant was that three excellent staff members were also just days away from resigning.

The practice took a calculated risk and my firm managed to remove the staff member by negotiating a payment of £4,000 via a COT3 agreement* with ACAS as part of the preconciliation claim process after the employee had launched an employment tribunal claim.

The employee signed the agreement, which removed any right to claim against the surgery, so it was settled in six weeks from start to finish. Negotiating a compromise agreement with the employee’s solicitors is quite common and can achieve the same results.

Calculated risks

Practices do have to accept calculated risks. No surgical procedure is risk-free, but essentially practices do it every day – nothing is totally risk-free. It is also worth remembering that often doing nothing and allowing other staff members to resign because their working environment is perhaps intolerable is more risky, legally, than dealing with the one problem member of staff. The good employees may resign and launch a constructive dismissal claim at tribunal as you failed to provide a proper working environment and satisfy the duty of care you owe them. You are then facing lawsuits from good employees and still have the problem employee working for you.

So, the sooner poor employees are removed, the better for all parties. But make sure you understand the requirements of the law before you start the process, and take expert advice at an early stage, as each situation needs its own risk assessment that will always include consideration of whether you may be facing a discrimination claim.

Do not attempt to do this alone, as it often costs much more than getting good advice early on.