Mock disciplinary hearing event to help crack the Acas code
THE Acas Code of Practice on Discipline and Grievance comes into play as soon as an employee raises a grievance with their employer or an employer raises an issue of misconduct or poor performance with an employee.
Failing to follow the code does not necessarily make a person or organisation liable to proceedings, but employment tribunals will take the code into account when considering relevant cases.
Tribunals have the ability to adjust awards by up to 25% for unreasonable failure to comply with the code – and when you consider that the average pay out for a claim of unfair dismissal is £13,851, it’s crucial that you crack the code before embarking on a disciplinary process.
The code is designed to ensure fairness and stipulates several factors that contribute to this:
Employers and employees should raise and deal with issues promptly and should not unreasonably delay meetings, decisions or confirmation of those decisions.
Employers and employees should act consistently.
Employers should carry out any necessary investigations, to establish the facts of the case.
Employers should inform employees of the basis of the problem and give them an opportunity to put their case in response before any decisions are made.
Employers should allow employees to be accompanied at any formal disciplinary or grievance meeting.
Employers should allow an employee to appeal against any formal decision made.
Conducting investigations The best way to ensure a compliant disciplinary process is completing a thorough investigation beforehand – it’s imperative that you pick the right person to conduct the investigation.
This may be specified in an organisation’s internal disciplinary procedure, but often the task falls to the employee’s line manager.
A little forward thinking at this stage will pay dividends. It is best that the person who conducts the investigation is not the same person to lead any potential disciplinary hearings.
In smaller organisations, the pool of employees may not be large enough to avoid this problem. If this is genuinely the case, then an employment tribunal should take this into account when assessing the fairness of the employer’s disciplinary procedure.
Still, it makes sense for employers to do their best to anticipate any situations that may be construed as partial or unfair and act accordingly.
The investigator will need to know how to ask the right questions. Being able to navigate through difficult interviews and interpret and understand the evidence takes skill and confidence.
It is not always straightforward, for instance, for an investigator to identify the difference between banter, bullying and harassment.
Unlike criminal proceedings in which the standard of proof is ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, an investigator only needs to decide that ‘on the balance of probabilities’ an incident is more likely to have occurred than not.
This makes it easier for investigators to reach a conclusion – but they should also explain why they have reached their conclusions.
Where some form of formal action is needed, what action is reasonable or justified will depend on all the circumstances of the particular case.
Employers should deal with issues promptly, fairly and consistently. Investigations should be carried out to gather and establish all the facts of the case.
Employees should be given the facts of the case and allowed to put their response forward, they have the right to be accompanied at any formal disciplinary meeting and allowed to appeal against any formal decision made.
Without actually completing a disciplinary hearing yourself, it’s not always easy to understand how they work and know when’s best to start the process. We’re often told that people can get things wrong but only realise this in hindsight when arguably it’s too late.
Lift the lid on disciplinary hearings Acas is at the forefront of developing and improving employment relations, people management and HR practice in the workplace. It has been one of the leading experts in this field for more than 40 years and works every day with organisations large and small. This unique experience brings valuable insight to training and good practice events.
Acas has developed a ‘Mock Disciplinary Hearing’ to help organisations explore investigations and disciplinary hearings in more detail.
On the day the team will delve into best practice for handling misconduct allegations and initial investigations, which will be followed by a live disciplinary hearing where you will witness snapshots of the proceedings and help decide the outcome!
Expert advisers, and leading law firm Capital Law, will lead you through the scenario and will explain the pitfalls, so that you can avoid finding yourself in the same position and come away with the knowledge and confidence to effectively conduct disciplinary hearings.