How to fight back at a disciplinary hearing?

So you have been invited to a disciplinary meeting with you manager, and it may involve HR, do you think this will be a fair and open hearing? I can tell you that in my personal experience it probably will not.

The decision about what will happen to you has probably already been made and HR advice will have been sought investigations will have been carried out that are favorable to your employer and a script will have been written -  all the disciplinary meeting is held for is to gather more evidence against you by allowing you to incriminate yourself and to strengthen their case.

Now there will be those in HR who will scream this is not the case and of course it is a fair process but this isn’t always the case and in over 90% of the cases that eventually go to tribunal that I have been involved with I can tell you in my personal experience that pre-judging the dsciplinary is exactly what has happened.

So, what can you do about it? Well you challenge as hard as you can.

Well firstly is it illegal to pre-judge a disciplinary meeting, the answer is no not always, but is it unfair? The answer is probably yes it could be; this is because it may mean that the investigation hasn’t probably been conducted properly, you haven’t been made aware of the allegations in a timely fashion and you have probably not had enough time to prepare or your side of the story or your version of events has just been ignored from the start and the only version of events that your employer is interested in is theirs.

So this is how you fight – challenge the process at the meeting or as soon as you can afterwards. Request the investigation report and make a note of the inconsistencies. Write or say something like the following : "I feel this process is predetermined and this process is pre-judged for these reasons .......". Make sure it is recorded in the minutes if you say this at the meeting as you will want to rely upon it later on. This tactic may just be enough of a jolt for your employer to get them to look at things again.

If you are in need of help then head over to book a session with one of our legal coaches or download a templated appeal or grievance letter .