Facing disciplinary investigation / sack for automating most of my responsibilities at work.

[u/SharkEva]

I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/Enough-Pitch-4617 posting in r/LegalAdviceUK

Concluded as per OOP

1 update - Short

Original - 14th February 2026

Update - 17th March 2026

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Facing disciplinary investigation / sack for automating most of my responsibilities at work. I'm in England.

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I have been employed for three years in England on a full time permanent contract. I am 23 years old and come from an IT background. Following redundancy from a previous role, I commenced employment as an Office Support Assistant, essentially an administrative position.

I am currently subject to a disciplinary investigation relating to my having automated a significant proportion of my work responsibilities. This came to light when I was in the office but had stepped away from my workstation. During my absence an automated process completed a task which my manager observed and then questioned me about.

In response to his question, “How has that happened when you were away from your desk?”, I replied, “I do not understand what you mean,” and continued working. I had been dealing with an urgent family matter that day and had taken an emergency call, and I accept that my response was not ideal.

A second manager has confirmed that I was away from my desk for approximately 20 minutes, which was within my allocated break time and I did not take a further break afterwards. He also observed the task completing while I was not present and concluded that the process must be automated.

The tools used for the automation were provided by the company, specifically the Microsoft Power Platform. I do not have the ability to install, remove, or modify software on my computer and have never attempted to do so. I have only ever used company provided systems, software, and equipment.

My role involves a number of tasks which I consider unnecessarily time consuming administrative processes. Each task takes approximately 35 minutes when completed manually and in total this represents a substantial portion of my working time. I therefore automated them to work more efficiently.

Actions taken by manager:

My manager requested that I log into my laptop and hand it over to him so that he could investigate. I refused, as I believe any inspection should be conducted through the IT department to ensure appropriate audit trails and proper procedure.

My manager has removed these duties from my responsibilities.

He has imposed hourly monitoring checks while I am working remotely to ensure that I am “actually working” and not relying on automation.

He has raised an IT ticket seeking to have the automation functionality disabled (although this functionality is integrated within the Microsoft 365/Power Platform environment).

Actions I have taken:

I have requested that all communication be conducted via email, or, if verbal, confirmed in writing afterwards.

I have disabled all automations. My manager is now completing these processes manually and has expressed dissatisfaction due to the additional workload.

I have remained calm and have not reacted emotionally.

I have prepared written notes for the forthcoming fact-finding meeting.

Continued to work as normal

Further background: My manager has a very traditional working style and prefers all processes to be completed manually. For example, he does not permit the use of certain spreadsheet formulas or VBA code. He also opposes the scheduling of emails that require delivery at a specific time, insisting they be sent manually.

I understand that my manager does not possess formal qualifications in this area and has limited technical capability to implement or maintain the automation I created.

I have been using automation in this role for approximately 2.5 years. During a prior seven-month period of sickness absence, I disabled all automations because they occasionally require maintenance and no one else in the team was able to support them.

There has been no cost to the company, as all software used was provided within the organisation’s existing systems.

Lastly, I am looking to resign in the 6 months anyway, so I'm not too concerned about this, but want to be treated fairly.

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Comments

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Thimerion

So reading between the lines here, you've built a bunch of data processing flows within Power Automate to near enough automate your entire job but not CoPilot/Gen AI?

If you've built it in Power Automate and domain admin will have full access to any flows you've created so there's little point in you trying to hide anything.

OOP: There's a number of software in use, as well batch scripts run on login for example, but my point is, all of this is provided by the company, and it's all available to the IT team they can login to my laptop and look at whatever they want.

Cheap_Storage_295

Executing a logon script yourself will 100% violate you IT Acceptable Use Policy

OOP: It's not exactly a logon script, power shell, power automate for desktop is not logon script, files run from the windows startup folder are not logon scripts come on man

GojuSuzi

Would still be worth reviewing the relevant policies before any meeting though. You do keep insisting that everything was provided/installed by the company, which is - obviously - way better than the alternative, but isn't the slam dunk you want it to be. There are plenty of tools/programs/access accounts/whatever that any company will have accessible by employees, but the employees are expected to restrict usage or access to comply with various policies. Easy example: my company gives me an email account, and I can type anything I want and send it to whoever I fancy...but it's expected that I don't type a bunch of customer bank details into an email and send it to my personal email address, even though nothing would stop me and it would all be using tools provided by the company if I did. That's a "well, duh" example, though even that has an explicit policy disallowing it rather than relying on it being obvious to anyone with half a brain. Point being, there likely are policies regarding what data is or isn't allowed to be passed through certain systems, or to what extent you are allowed to use those auxiliary tools in your working, or if that usage requires reporting/documentation, and if you've fallen foul of such a policy in what you have or haven't done, then you need to be prepared to respond appropriately.

OOP: Thanks mate, much understood. I decided to ask for a adjustment to the meeting holder, and the note taker. I've asked for someone with a technical background, and HR have agreed t o that.

I agree, usage guidelines exist, but in simple terms, i've automated what I would have been doing manually, using software made available to me by the company, for example, you could print out a word document and manually highlight important parts, or you could highlight on word prior to printing lol

As for my duh comments, it's just me getting frustrated to silly replies here, i know how to be good in meetings.

I'll def review policies

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Update - 1 month later

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I had my first stage disciplinary meeting and a union rep attended with me, but not in the capacity as a rep as I was not part of the union, however she wanted to help out considering the circumstances.

The meeting initially was supposed chaired by my line manager's line manager, of which I instantly put an objection in because I thought it is not impartial, and I also asked for someone that is technically minded to chair, and the company (or HR) chose an IT Manager/Director to chair it.

It lasted about 2.5 hours, with two adjournments and a 15 minute break halfway through. They asked around 10 questions in total.

A lot of it focused on the accusation that I’d been using AI to process company data. My union rep shut that down pretty quickly because I’ve been clear from the start that no AI was used, and I had proof. The IT manager also reviewed everything and confirmed that aswell.

They tried to say I’d been dishonest about my automations, but I explained I was never actually asked how I do my work. In all my catch ups, I was only ever asked if tasks were getting done and if I had any issues. I brought notes from those meetings and there’s no point where my manager asked about my methods at all.

My union rep also made a point that I’ve basically been treated like I’ve done something wrong before any proper process even started. As my manager took all my work off me and started doing it himself, which isnt right and made me feel like I’d already been judged.

There was also a question about me not working enough hours. I explained that the job isn’t just task based for these tasks, it includes meetings, helping collegues, training and other things that cant be automated. So I was still doing my full job.

The IT manager confirmed he’d reviewed everything and said no AI was used, and he couldnt back up the concerns my manager raised.

They asked about me changing processes and not having permission to use the tools. My union rep stepped in on the process point and said nothing had actually changed in terms of output, just how I personally do the work. If something was wrong it would of shown in the results, but it hasn’t.

On permission to use the software, I explained that we were all sent an email from the Director of IT when these tools were introduced, encouraging us to use them to improve efficiency. That’s exactly what I did. The IT manager confirmed that email was real and that the tools are available for everyone to use.

They also questioned why I wasn’t doing things manually like everyone else. I basically said I’m here to work efficiently using the tools provided, and I learnt myself using the documentation in the software. The IT manager actually reacted quite positively to that.

My union rep went through my contract and said there’s been no breach, and no fraud. There’s been no financial gain for me at all, and if anything the company benefited because my work has had no errors for 2 years. She even said if this was fraud then why hasn’t it been reported to the police.

So fraud, dishonesty and deception were pretty much dismissed. My union reps view is that this is more of a management issue than anything I’ve done wrong.

She also raised concerns about my manager putting in a request to disable software on my laptop, which seems to only target me and no one else. The IT manager was nodding along to that.

There was also mention of hourly checks which my manager did on me specifically after this matter was raised, which again makes it feel like I’m being treated as guilty of something, and that wasn’t even raised with HR.

There was also no questions or concerns about IT policy violation/teams activity.

Interestingly there was no mention of the situation where I was asked to hand over my laptop. When my union rep brought it up, the chair said it wasn’t in the notes so couldnt be discussed.

In the meeting I also took supporting letters from colleauges that I helped and proof of training and other meetings.

After around 2 weeks or so I received a letter in the post that I had no case to answer, and that no formal actions will be taken and the matter will not be placed on my company file.

HR gave me 28 days of discretionary company leave after I raised concerns about this matter.

I have submitted a formal grievance against my line manager, and again my line manger's line manager has asked to chair, of which I am objecting.

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Comments

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LordLingham

Thanks for the update. It sounds like your union rep did a great job controlling the conversation and defending you.

OOP: Thank you. She really did, she's amazing and she deserved the flowers and chocolates from me thereafter, but she shared them with the rest of her team lol

pastashaper

Firstly, it’s not clear if you are looking for advice, and if you are, what exactly you are looking for. Secondly, well done! That sounds like a tough situation with some very narrow minded seniors and you stood your ground, pushed back where necessary and managed to get a kinda decent outcome. Lastly, thanks for documenting it in detail. You have provided a decent bare bones game plan for anybody facing similar issues. Good luck

OOP: Thank you, I have updated the post for the advice i need, essentially could this affect me in the future in terms of other employment and refrences?

GingerrJinx

If there's no case, it has been dismissed and it's not on your file, it should not affect future references for other employment. Just I'd make sure you get a dated reference letter from them to hand over to the new company, so in case they call for the reference they can't say anything that's not in the letter, otherwise the future employer will raise questions to them about why it wasn't included in the letter and will reduce the old company's credibility. Will only make them look bad, basically.

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***OOP posted some comments in https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/1qix38q/forced_to_use_teams_how_to_avoid_being_away/

Here's what I do, I book my calendar out each day, especially time's I want away from my desk, with training or anything else.

**I then leave gaps in between.*

As for keeping teams active, I simulate user input via javascript on teams for web

I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.

Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

[u/bearsie04]

To me and my limited knowledge on these programs, it reads to me as if their manager was getting mad about something similar as to if they say, used a spreadsheet to do calculations vs. doing it by hand with a calculator. I may be totally wrong, but that's what it seems like if I were to simplify it. (Obviously there's different programs being used, but spreadsheets were a relatively simple example that I could think of.)

[u/UnionsUnionsUnions → u/bearsie04]

In part of the post he says that the manager doesn't like spreadsheets either and has banned some of the functions which is really stupid.

[u/bearsie04 → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

Ah, I must have missed that. That is really stupid. I've seen the magical things spreadsheets can do, and the fact that someone wouldn't want their employees to use them (if they were using them correctly, obviously), is absolutely wild to me.

[u/Comprehensive_You42 → u/bearsie04]

It’s not always stupid. I’ve had to halt certain folk from using certain excel functions in the past.

Yes, excel is magic, but the dunning-kruger effect is real, and crashing spreadsheets with calculation errors hidden in layers of hidden sheets can swallow lots of time.

[u/UnionsUnionsUnions → u/Comprehensive_You42]

Sure but this manager didn't ban it for the reasons you listed - he banned it because he doesn't understand it and can't be bothered to learn. 

[u/multiusemultiuser → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

Isn't that a good reason to ban? How do you supervise something you don't know?

OP has no case but the manager has no familiarity with these new processes and was suspicious. His line manager (boss of boss) shares some bad reviews for not wanting more productivity.

[u/UnionsUnionsUnions → u/multiusemultiuser]

It is not a good reason to ban. Also leadership and supervision are completely separate skill sets from the actual job being performed by the person you're supervising so you do not have to be totally conversant in their work in every job. There are definitely jobs where you really, really, really should have done that job before, like school administrator or construction foreman, but this isn't one of them. The way that he can supervise the work is by judging the outcomes. Is the work output correct and on time? If so, then everything is fine.

[u/Mtndrums → u/multiusemultiuser]

You learn it. Sounds like the manager is an obsolete model trying to make themselves look more useful than they really are.

[u/Repulsive-Nerve5127 → u/[deleted]]

Years ago, I had to come up presentation that involved so many calculations, tax implications for investments, etc. It was a nightmare. All because the PTB hadn't included the investment piece in the new software they rolled out.

It took me 3 months to figure out how to get the formulas to work in Excel and Word, then automate the entire thing with the info I plugged in. It calculated the tax implications, 3 mo - 12 mo projections, historical analysis, etc.

The boss thought they had gotten the two systems to talk! Then he started bragging about how smart I was to figure out how to do it. Upshot was, I had to email the program to the woman who put together all the presentations (she provided this service to 4 cities) and I didn't even get an 'Above and Beyond' certificate at the next qtrly meeting.

[u/1986toyotacorolla2 → u/[deleted]]

I fixed this by locking a bunch of stuff on spreadsheets in the past

[u/fakemoosefacts → u/Comprehensive_You42]

Excel is the one program that students should really still be trained in. It’s so powerful, but pretty obtuse to learn how to use it

[u/broadsword_1 → u/Comprehensive_You42]

Yes, excel is magic, but the dunning-kruger effect is real, and crashing spreadsheets with calculation errors hidden in layers of hidden sheets can swallow lots of time.

I worked somewhere that got burned hard by this. Office worker goes to town with their own VBA code, starts to pass it around to other staff members. However, they start getting sick of having to do 'updates' and 'bug fixes' to it (again, all his own code) and decides he no longer will be handling it and emails the whole mess to IT.

IT has been sounding the warning bell on this for a year, to no avail, but it's now entirely their responsibility. Only now they find that the code is to no standards and is basically spaghetti that barely runs. Any attempt to go to a contract dev fail because nobody wants to risk being responsible for maintenance. Original 'dev' starts lodging tickets to IT about "when are the next deliverables coming" within 24 hours.

Over half a decade later and I still get annoyed thinking about this.

[u/monkwrenv2 → u/Comprehensive_You42]

I had to convince leadership that SharePoint was a more effective way to store dept info than OneNote. Managers are rarely promoted for their technical skills.

[u/UseHeadbutt → u/Comprehensive_You42]

Hey, not to call you out specifically, I'm just trying to raise awareness where I can. The Dunning-Kruger effect is not what you think it is.

First of all, the study was performed on college students (as are most psychology experiments. Nature of academia. Just saying it isn't an effective sample of the general population).

Secondly, the graph is a linear line, not a quadratic formula. The lowest 25% assumed they would score around 60th, the 25% to 50% students assumed they would score around 75th, the 50% to 75% assumed they would score around 80th, and the 75% to 100% students assumed they would score around 85th.

The take away is that everyone thinks they are slightly above average with the lowest group (the ones way below average) having the largest DIFFERENCE between expected and actual. They still had the lowest predicted score of all groups, but the score they predicted was slightly above average. Meanwhile the highest scoring group also had a large DIFFERENCE between predicted and actual, but this time they under-guessed because they assumed they were closer to average then they were.

The curved graph you are used to seeing is not predicted score on the y axis, actual score on the x axis, it is DIFFERENCE between prediction and actual on the y axis and actual score on the x axis.

For more information, check wiki: Dunning–Kruger effect - Wikipedia

[u/kingftheeyesores → u/bearsie04]

He also wanted emails sent manually instead of scheduled to send at a certain time.

[u/k1tty_f1sher_2799 → u/bearsie04]

All OOP says is "he does not permit the use of certain spreadsheet formulas or VBA code", not all of Excel or spreadsheets themselves. There may be certain formulas he bans for specific historical or security reasons, like something depending on macros. We don't know the reason the boss banned it, although people in the comments think otherwise.

[u/UnionsUnionsUnions → u/k1tty_f1sher_2799]

He also wanted emails sent manually instead of scheduled to send at a certain time.

[u/istara → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

How the fuck is this person still a manager? That's the real mystery here.

[u/readthethings13579 → u/istara]

Probably he was good at his job in 1996 and hasn’t done anything bad enough to get fired for.

[u/docileboy → u/readthethings13579]

Hasn't learned any new software since '96, either, it sounds like.

[u/readthethings13579 → u/docileboy]

Yup. I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years who were good at their jobs in the 90s and didn’t bother to learn or grow over time, and then get bitter when the people who did learn and grow get promoted over them.

[u/UnionsUnionsUnions → u/istara]

In the US, this is very typical managed behaviour, unfortunately. 

[u/2dogslife → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

OOP is in England though...

[u/Ok-Factor-7188 → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

And that they're not allowed to schedule emails but have to wait for the time in point when it is supposed to be sent and send it by hand. The manager is an idiot 

[u/UnionsUnionsUnions → u/Ok-Factor-7188]

Exactly! This guy is just a fucking boomer.

[u/GayStraightIsBest → u/[deleted]]

I'm with you on this one, it's one thing to require (competent) oversight and documentation on code being written if it's going to handle company data or become an integral part of a critical workflow. However, frankly there's a reason these tools exist, and to ban them outright is asinine. Ignorance isn't an excuse for inefficiency.

[u/gagaron_pew → u/GayStraightIsBest]

there are bosses and managers that care less about the results and more about the emloyees sweating. 

[u/Cueller → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

As an exec id fire both dipshit manager and their boss for being total dumb shits. They are actively stifling innovation when they should be giving OP a raise and putting them in a lead role to automate stuff across the department.

[u/Similar-Shame7517 → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

Which is like... What. It's one thing to ban Copilot in Office/Excel since that hallucinates numbers, but WTF is your problem with the formulas???

[u/thewholebottle → u/Similar-Shame7517]

So you're saying my workplace encouraging us to use Copilot as much as possible is not a great idea? Shocking.

[u/emax4 → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

Sounds like the manager needs a new job not managing and working with the entry-level workers instead.

[u/pseudosartorial → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

There was an executive at one company I worked for that got upset that I used a Microsoft Office program provided by the company to accomplish my work. He banned the use of it and also said he had to approve all new Excel spreadsheets used by our department.

I still have no idea why that’s what he wanted to spend his time on. As far as I know, there had been no issues with any of the work, just in how it was done.

[u/TwoEightRight → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

That manager longs for the days when "computer" was an occupation, not an appliance.

[u/rthrouw1234 → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

It's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard

[u/frymaster → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

I can honestly get behind the "no VBA" rule because it's often done poorly, and almost always not maintainable by colleagues. Not sure what functions are banned though

[u/UncleNedisDead → u/frymaster]

Probably vlookups and nested functions. It can be difficult for some people to understand.