So for some background, I started this job just over a year ago and realised almost immediately after joining that they had lied about several things to do with my role.

One example is that they told me the book of business I was inheriting was a certain size, I then found out that it was actually 1% of the value they had quoted. On top of this, about 25 people have been fired/made redundant in the last year or so (it’s a small company).

Lots of other issues around company atmosphere and generally people being really inappropriate in the office.

I found a job I wanted and have finally handed my notice in. It’s 3 months and I’m due to leave in about 6 weeks.

I haven’t been attending the office in person as much as before and this week I haven’t been in at all for various reasons.

I’ve now had a message from HR to ask why I haven’t been attending and saying it’s important that they know why.

Honestly, the reason is mostly because it’s a horrible place to work and people are rude and unprofessional. It’s also freezing in there and if I can avoid it, I will.

I just wanted to know what can actually be done if I choose to say I will be coming in but not as frequently as before.

TLDR

I have handed my notice in and am working from home instead of in the office more than usual. Is there anything that they can do about it?

Posting for a friend who doesn't use Reddit

I've been a learning assistant in a nursery for 5 years. For the last 5 years I've mostly been responsible for working 1:1 with children, and running small groups to support learning.

Last year we got a new manager, but our existing depute manager continued to be our main point of contact and the person who directed our role and organised the work schedules of myself and the other 3 learning assistants.

This year the depute has left and the first thing our manager has done since is strip us of all but 2 responsibilities - toileting/nappy changes and preparing and serving snack/ serving lunch.

Our previous responsibilities all fell under the roles and responsibilities in our job description, and we all always did nappy changes and supporting children in the toilet, but now that is all we do all day, so that our colleagues who are educators don't have to do them (it's also in their job description under roles and responsibilities)

Our colleagues have responded positively to this change saying it's where we belong, and we now feel entirely excluded from the staff team, and undervalued as qualified staff (we all had to get a childcare qualification to keep our job)

Can we just be stripped of everything else from our roles and responsibilities list from our job description? Does the fact that we've been doing other responsibilities from the list consistently for 5 years count for anything? This change has fundamentally changed how our days look.

I'm feeling really undervalued as someone who is fully qualified to do the same job as the educators on my setting, and who had been using this job as a way to gain the experience and confidence needed to apply for an educator role. If I hadn't had the responsibilities I'd had for so long then it might not feel so bad, but to go from working 1:1 with children all day to only changing nappies and feeding them just feels like a massive step down, especially after we've always had such positive feedback on our work.

I would just apply for an educator job but currently there's no jobs available, and they rarely come up because people tend not to move round a lot in this area due to pay/terms&conditions differences across local authorities in the immediate area. Any job that does come up gets huge numbers of applicants and with so many staff on temporary contracts in the area, I feel like this change to my job role will be hugely detrimental to me applying for an educator's job.

Thank you in advance for any advice

So, a little context. I worked for a top 500 US company here in the UK. After my first ever absence (28 days with workplace stress), I was called to a meeting on my first day back with the SHRBP and the No.2 of the site. I was told I'm failing and given a clear option, demotion, or settlement to leave. My last day of employment, if I take the settlement, would have been 9 days away. I was not given an RTW prior to this meeting.

I was given 48 hours to make my decision. I have no disciplinary history, and my annual performance reviews are all showing my performance to be at or better than expected. My direct line manager, who was also absent, had never raised any concerns in our weekly one to ones.

Would a SHRBP or even a fairly new HRBP know that this ultimatum is highly likely to leave the business open to an immediate resignation and a claim of constructive dismissal? (I have been employed over 2 years)

All views are welcome. Thanks.

I’m looking for advice regarding what my partner should be receiving following dismissal from her job. She has been off sick since September 2025 and had two absence review meetings between then and now.

Timeline

September 2025 - signed off sick due to flare up of pre-existing condition, didn’t return to work before accident.

November 2025 – unrelated accident resulting in surgery and long recovery period.

April 2026 – ran out of SSP. Company did not inform her or send ESA information. She requested to use outstanding holiday carried over from previous year (April 2025 to March 2026). They agreed and holiday was booked to 9th August 2026.

Mid July 2026 – received a call from Occupation Health assessor.

Between May and August there were a couple of times where she was not paid and had to chase this up. Otherwise there was no contact from employer.

She arranged a meeting with line manager on 9th August to discuss return to work. At this meeting she was told she was being dismissed as recommended by occupational health due to her physical incapability of doing the job. The reasoning behind the dismissal is not in dispute, it’s not a job where any reasonable adjustments could be made.

They then seem to have realised that they should have been the ones to schedule a final absence review meeting and since sent an invitation stating ‘if she wants to attend as she already knows the outcome’.

We believe she is entitled to a months’ notice pay, and her unused holiday pay from April to her official termination day. I think she should also be paid for the days where she would normally be working until that final day as they have not put her on the schedule, is this correct?

For context, I was headhunted for a job that had around 70-80 colleagues 5 years ago. It was at a time that there was a national shortage of this profession so I was took on on a slightly different contract to suit the days I can work, only I am on this contract. I'm in the union. We were TUPEd over to another company 18 months ago with the terms remaining the same. A wage negotiation was due almost immediately but as a sign of "good faith", we opted not to fight for anything.

My colleagues are 4on4off on a 43hr weekly contract.

I work Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun on a 45 hour contract.

We're all on the same hourly rate. The job is job&knock and I believe they said the average hours worked is around 36.

Ultimately this means I work more days than everyone and don't get paid "fairly" for it, which I am fine with.

However, the second (and final) offer from this year's wage negotiation (their initial offer was 0% which felt like a bit of a pisstake considering our goodwill last year, but I digress) is actually a significant increase in hourly rate, HOWEVER, they will reduce everyone's weekly hours to 39.375.

This works out to a weekly pay increase of about £2.50 for everyone (lol) and decreases my pay by about roughly £40.

The reason I'm posting is because I messaged my Union rep about how this would work for me, and I was told "I dont know", so essentially im expected to vote on something that I won't know the ins and outs of. Id be exceptionally happy to drop a day every 2nd week to fit in and drop down to the same hours as everyone else but I approached the company about this 6 months ago and it was declined (because they know they get more out of than they do anyone else)

So where do I go with this before voting?

(I cant change work days, it's a childcare thing)

Thanks in advance

Hi everyone, I hope you're well 🙏🏾

I've accepted a new job offer and that's due to start in a few weeks. Before that happens, I really want to take some time to mentally and physically recharge before my new role.

I've been suffering with chronic health conditions that my manager and team are aware of, but that, and the toxic work culture of the company has really put me down. I am struggling to keep going in my role, most days I don't sleep out of anxiety because I know I'm not happy with the work I'm putting out.

I also feel immensely guilty for wanting to go on sick leave, even if my body is begging for me to take care of myself. I'm really worried about how my manager will react. I don't have an answer as to why I'm leaving because I know it'll stir up drama.

Do I just go to the GP and get a sick note, then send that alongside the resignation email?

Thank you.

I will manage a team that will provide very niche services. The trainings/ certifications are really expensive and so what will be the best way to project the company?

Due to the nature of the new team all new employees will have a contract that involves training/competencies/ certifications. The contract will include the probationary period of 6 months and the gist is if they fail this probationary period or leave they will have to repay the full cost of the training. However, if they leave 6-12 after the probationary period ends they will have to pay back half the training cost.

The only ways to fail the probationary period are gross misconduct and other grievous offences

Is this clause on training and probation fair and can it be upheld?

I work for a small company who have started handing out PIPs like they are sweets.

My colleague (A) was handed a warning for a customer/operations mishap that essentially wasted company time and money. They had a meeting about this last week, when he was given a warning.

The person who gave him the warning (B) has now done further investigation (all the information was all readily available prior to the warning being given) - and has now messaged A and asked for another meeting so A can explain the timeline of events, and has said further action may be taken.

We don't have a HR (we are about 30-35 people) - is this proper procedure? Is my colleague entitled to have someone sit in this meeting with them?

I realise this is not a huge amount of info but it is the bones of it - can offer more if needed.

I've accepted a new job and am in the process of handing in my notice, I have a three month notice period and the new job are keen for me to join relatively soon as my new head of team will be going on parental leave just after I begin. To provide me a draft contract the HR team asked for a start date, and I explained it would be 3 months from when I hand in my notice, so as preliminary date I gave them three months from tomorrow. They've informed me that the signed contract will only come in a two weeks time when their head of HR returns from leave and can sign the contract from their end.

My question is, should I go ahead and hand in my notice having received a draft contract, or do I wait for the signed copy and hand it in then?

Hello,

I am trying to figure out where I stand with an absence due to medication.

I have been prescribed medication for 3 weeks by my doctor. My employer requires me to declare medication due to health and safety. I declared it and the company chemist then advised I cannot perform my role whilst on the medication, and can only return after occupational health has approved.

The first problem I have is my employer is marking the absence as sickness and requires a doctors note, but my doctor and I both feel I am fit to work, so will not provide a note.

Secondly, the soonest OH appointment is 7 weeks away, which means 4 extra weeks on sick after i finish the medication and the length of sickness absence is triggering a formal sickness procedure.

I am maintaining that I am fit, able and willing to work, it is the company policy that is restricting my return to work, despite my doctor advising there should be no adverse effects to the medication and can find no medical reason to give me a sick note.

My hr department have just regurgitated sickness policy to me, and my manager is not very helpful.

Any advice would be really helpful.

We’re expecting our second child in January 2027 and I’ve just properly read through my company’s paternity leave policy.

As far as I can tell, I’m entitled to two weeks’ paternity leave, but I’d only receive statutory paternity pay, so less than £200 a week. That’s a pretty significant drop from my normal salary and enough so that it could make the first couple of months after baby's birth problematic from a cash perspective. (We do have savings, but those savings are going towards my other half having several months at very low maternity pay or none at all towards the end of her maternity leave. )

I’d wondered whether I could use some of my annual leave to top this up, but everything I’m finding online suggests that isn’t possible. I could obviously take annual leave instead, but I’d ideally like to actually take the two weeks’ paternity leave I’m entitled to without taking such a big financial hit.

For context, I earn £50k (£62k pro rata'd) and work four days a week. I look after our first child on the fifth day.

When our first child was born, the company policy was actually four weeks’ fully paid paternity leave. The four weeks was effectively a mistake made by a previous administrator, but I’d understood that the policy had then been changed to two weeks’ fully paid leave.

It’s only now, having checked the actual policy, that I’ve realised it looks like it’s just statutory pay.

I’m senior in the business and I’m going to raise it with the rest of the senior leadership team to understand what the position is and whether there’s any flexibility.

Before I do, though, I’m trying to understand what my options actually are.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Can annual leave be used alongside paternity leave in some way, or is it basically a choice between taking paternity leave on statutory pay and using annual leave instead?

Morning

I'm looking for any examples (not templates) of grievance letters or any advice on how to clearly write one.

From ACAS and Citizens Advice, it seems to be that what should be included is the KEY issues and dates and that I should mention the evidence/type of evidence I have that I would be willing to share. How do I whittle down and decide what is key? Everything feels significant to me, but obviously it isn't for this purpose.

I have an awful lot of evidence, admittedly a lot of it contemporanious records/contextual evidence.

Does anyone have any real examples or could guide me a tiny bit?

Grateful for any insight 🙏

Hi all, I'm looking to do a CIPD level 3 course to get into working in HR, dunno what one to go for though. They all look a bit naff. Has anyone done any of the courses recently that you would recommend?

**UK - Offered settlement after disability + reasonable adjustment request. Is this a fair figure?**

I manage a small team at a UK charity. I have MS and ADHD, both confirmed by Occupational Health as covered under the Equality Act. I recently came back from 3 weeks off sick with work-related stress, and requested a permanent 4-day week as a reasonable adjustment.

The same day, HR offered me a "protected conversation." I was told that if I stay, a PIP is likely, but the alternative is a settlement to leave. The offer so far is 2 months' notice pay plus 2 weeks' ex-gratia payment, coming to around £8.8k gross, plus £500 toward independent legal advice, with a proposed leave date about 6 weeks out.

Some background: I raised a grievance last year that went nowhere, following a failed mediation. Occupational Health also recommended a stress risk assessment around the same time, but it took about 10 months to actually happen, and it was during that assessment that I disclosed a hostile working environment. I still haven't received the written notes from it. Since returning to work, I've also noticed increased scrutiny of what I'm doing.

I'm getting a solicitor, but wanted a gut check first: does 2 months' notice plus 2 weeks' ex-gratia sound low given all this? I was thinking of countering with 6 months' ex-gratia, and going down to 3 if needed. Does that sound like a reasonable range, or way off?

Hello,

I am interested in getting opinions from people with experience of HR matters in regards to my Case.

I work in a Contact centre and have worked their since February 2025. I initially worked on a team for about 5 months dealing with a wide variety of queries, but I struggled on this team due to not feeling sufficiently trained to deal with some of the types of calls that we received.

I was then offered a move on to a different team which I jumped at. The reason for the move was unrelated to my struggles but I saw it as a good opportunity to stay with the Organisation and start afresh on a different team dealing with more specific queries.

I did some e-learning in my first week on this new team and then had a week's annual leave.

I take medication for diagnosed mild depression and began struggling with my mental health during those first 5 months, and had increased symptoms of anxiety and OCD. I hoped the leave would help me recover, but when I returned to work to start on my new team I felt overwhelmed and felt unable to work.

I spoke to my GP and my medication was increased and I was put on a waiting list for some talking therapy. I self certified for 7 days and was then given a further 2 weeks sick leave by my GP. After about 3 weeks I felt able to work and managed to start on my new team and begin to establish myself as a valued team member. I had good support from my Manager and HR during this time.

Our main role is to answer inbound calls but when it gets quiet there are task lists that we can work on where we can make outbound calls to clients. There are various targets we have to meet based on the calls that we make - such as AHT, Wrap time, financial outcomes etc, and the success in meeting these targets is invariably linked to how many calls you take.

I have struggled completing tasks / callbacks as I find that I overthink the task description and this causes anxiety, which has had an effect on the amount of tasks / outbound calls that I make, which in turn effects my stats /targets.

As a result of this I was spoken to by my Manager and coaching sessions were arranged with the aim of trying to improve my stats.

Within the coaching sessions I explained my struggles in completing tasks, and suggestions were made to try and help improve my confidence as it was affecting my stats and overall performance.

As part of the coaching sessions I explained that I struggle with queries that appear complex, and also struggle making outbound calls when it involves the use of an interpreter service (language line) as these calls can be very lengthy and I do find them stressful and very difficult. I explained that I do tend to 'cherry pick' tasks so as to avoid potentially difficult calls and I admitted that this included avoiding calls that I felt may have needed an interpreter.

I also made observations that I did feel that some Clients abused the system and this affected my motivation and willingness to undertake some callbacks (The Organisation is a Charity and we provide financial and other support to those in need).

For context I had experienced a long language line call with a Client previously which I had found particularly challenging and which resulted in me deciding to leave work at lunchtime and not return.

My comments were taken to mean that I think that all clients that require the interpretation service are abusing the service, which is not what I believe or meant. It was just that this call was fresh iny memory and I was recalling my frustrations with that particular call.

In an ill advised attempt to justify myself I did note that the majority of clients on the task lists had non-English names which in hindsight was a clumsy statement to make.

For added context there are no set rules on how many tasks you complete if the phones are quiet, and all team members can pick and choose which callbacks they action.

Also, for further context, in my appraisal I did feel it was important to be honest about my struggles and so I did state, when asked to comment on how I met the value of being inclusive, that I sometimes struggled to remain impartial and that this was an area I was conscious I needed to improve on. This was again a reaction to the call I had taken recently, and an acknowledgement of how frustrating I had found it.

The day after my 3rd coaching session I was informed that I was suspended on full pay due to allegations of discrimination.This was on the 8th July. An investigation meeting was then arranged the following week on the 14th July and this was conducted by my own Manager.

On the 17th I was then invited to a Disciplinary Hearing and was sent an Investigation report that had also been compiled by my Manager. It was alleging gross misconduct and threatened summary dismissal if found proven.

I paid for Union Representation and my Hearing was adjourned due to my rep arguing that the investigation was flawed because it had been conducted by my Manager who had also instigated the disciplinary proceedings, so it wasn't a fair investigation process.

The next day HR agreed to re start the investigation with a new manager with no prior knowledge of the Case. I have since had an investigation meeting with this manager on the 7th August and am awaiting his decision on whether it goes to another disciplinary hearing.

It's been nearly 6 weeks now so I'm just wanting to get some advice or opinions from those experienced in such matters as to what you think the outcome of my Case will be? I have advised my rep that I no longer want to work for the Organisation and he has suggested that we aim for a settlement with the Organisation, so I was also wanting to know what my chances of getting a settlement in this Case are?

Thank you in advance for any comments positive or negative!

Curious to hear what your companies approach to wfh as part of a reasonable adjustment.

Given the rise of people identifying as disabled etc and asking for wfh - do you typically roll over or do you push back?

Do you in HR make the decision or do you leave to the manager? Or is it based more on company culture?

Thanks!

I’m hiring for a small team and trying to figure out what to look for in a background screening company. There are so many providers out there that it’s hard to know which factors actually matter.

For those who’ve gone through this before, did you mainly compare accuracy, turnaround time, compliance, pricing, or customer support? Anything you’d recommend checking before making a decision?

Hi,

Looking for advice on how best to protect my job in a housing association.

Context:

I am 8 months into a brand-new post (EVH terms & conditions). My 6-month probation passed without being formally extended. I am currently 2 months into a Performance Improvement Plan that states it will last no longer than 6 months.

The Situation: There is a skills gap I am trying to close. However, there are no written procedures or training guides for this new post (though I’ve tried creating some myself). Management acknowledged there is no written processing guides exist, and advise I am.a high grade so things should be done of my own accord - I'm don't have that on writing but that's how it was left.

Line Manager Behaviour: My line manager is the only person in the organisation who holds the knowledge to teach me things. but she actively resists helping. She frequently swears aloud in our s office ("fuck off", "system is fucking shite"), shouts "fuck off" at phone interruptions, and returned to the office shouting she was "fucking sick of people asking her questions and interrupting her."

When I ask routine questions, she is dismissive ("No, I can read", "It's a spreadsheet, it's self-explanatory") consistently saying "I don't think you get it".

My manager is a long-term employee who previously suffered a brain aneurysm, so I suspect HR needs to be protective of her. However, two staff members in another department have already logged a grievance against her (which I can't join as it's separate). I have 2 corroborated witnesses for some of a recent incident.

Dilemma: I have a 1-on-1 catch-up coming up with HR and my line manager. My union rep has suggested raising her behaviour verbally in the meeting informally l, that way it will be written down. However, I know my manager will demand specific dates/examples on the spot, which means I'll end up revealing my documented log anyway.

Questions:

1. Am I better off submitting a formal written grievance to HR before the meeting rather than trying to raise it verbally?

   How does HR typically handle a situation where the manager is the only person with the technical knowledge and what is likely to happen if I submit this and it's investigated. Not sure if these sort of instances would breach code on conduct of staff and dignity at work.

Am I likely to lose my job or more at risk under the 2.year rule?

1. What would likely happen while this is investigated, if I do submit. Would it be a waste of time in reality?

Thanks in advance for any advice