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Arkwright,

It’s extremely tough being an MD of a small business these days when you have to wear more than one hat, and the area of employment law and HR can catch you out resulting in significant losses. Certainly know the feeling running my own consultancy.

Certainly doesn't sound like a great situation, and clearly this gentleman has a lot of influence over the way things work in the business, especially if he is a bully.

You say you have given him notice - so an end date has been set. I'm not sure what employment contracts you have, but hopefully you have a 'gardening leave' clause. Something like 'during the period of notice, the company shall be under no obligation to assign any duties to you and shall be entitled to exclude you from its premises. Although this will not affect your right to receive your normal salary and other benefits'

If so, you can enforce that clause, and he basically sits at home through the duration of his notice, and does the gardening if he wishes - hence the name.

You will need to meet with him to tell him that you want to enact this clause and the reasons for it - can say that for confidentiality reasons etc want him to serve notice off site, or some other reason you feel is appropriate.

If you don’t have this clause you can still ask him to take gardening leave, but need to be careful as could leave you open to breach of contract, and of course potentially an unfair dismissal claim if he can link it to Age or some other discrimination issue.

Hope this helps.

Like some of the other regular contributors to the site - we specialise in assisting SME's with their HR, so while we worry about the changes in employment law and make sure you stay legal, you can focus on what you do best and that’s run your business.

I would be happy to discuss the issue you have further with you and any other help you may require. If you email me I will pass you my number.

If not - good luck with your issue.

Adrian

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Good Morning

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Good mornign Arkwright

It sounds like you have a slippery customer.  Whislt I understand your situation, it might be an idea to think about an HR consultant to assist you with your issues with this employee and any other issues within your business.  I would be happy to assist you with this should you wish to consider.  Please feel free to contatc me via my email.

Kind Regards

Kim Taylor (MCIPD)

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Good

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Have you thought about agreeing a very specific training plan for this gentleman to deliver to the new employee? If you know what he needs to cover in the hand over period, you could agree a set of very clear goals for him to achieve so that you can monitor the progress of the handover properly.

It would also be advisable to have weekly catch up sessions with the new employee to see how his induction and training plan is progressing and build up a good relationship so that he or shee feels able to let you know if there is any underhand stuff going on.

Finally, it might be in your interests to offer a training bonus to the exiting employee whereby you sanction a one off bonus payment on completion of the training targets he has been set (so long as you both agree on the requirements for achieving the payment) This may kill three birds with one stone, 1. enable an effective training period without the playground sabotage you previously mentioned, 2. provide the exiting empoyee with a tangible reason for behaving and 3. enabling him to finish work earlier than his formal leaving date (with full pay until the agreed leave date) feeling that he has achieved something.

There is likely to be lots of underlying issues as to why this employee feels the need to show you that he is so brilliant, he simply cannot be replaced but pragmatically you don't have time to get into what on the surface appears to be years of background. This solution could give him the credit he seems to crave but also allow you to continue his work sucessfully once he has moved on.

Hope this helps

Emma

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