{"id":1838,"date":"2015-09-30T15:17:46","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/?p=1838"},"modified":"2015-09-30T15:17:46","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T15:17:46","slug":"hr-interference-makes-dismissal-unfair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/hr-interference-makes-dismissal-unfair\/","title":{"rendered":"HR \u2018interference\u2019 makes dismissal unfair"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span class=\"blue\"><strong>What is the legal development?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Confirmation of the principal that HR advice should be limited to matters of law, process and procedure &#8211; avoiding comment on questions of culpability.<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1hWp0Fr\">recent case<\/a> the investigating officer\u2019s initial conclusions were misconduct with a recommendation for a written warning. After numerous comments and amendments from HR, the offence became gross misconduct with a recommendation of summary dismissal. It was held that heavy influence by HR in the outcome of an investigation could compromise the fairness of the process and result in an unfair dismissal.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"blue\"><strong>What does this mean in practice for employers?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>When does advice and guidance become interference? HR professionals will be giving advice throughout an investigation and at times may be tempted to influence an investigation report and its conclusions. While they may ask questions about clarity, they should otherwise stand back and allow the investigating officer to reach their own conclusions.<\/p>\n<p>HR may also need to advise on what might be a fair sanction in terms of consistency across an organisation, but great care needs to be taken not to go too far and be accused of interfering in the decision-making process or recommending an appropriate sanction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the legal development? Confirmation of the principal that HR advice should be limited to matters of law, process and procedure &#8211; avoiding comment on questions of culpability. In a recent case the investigating officer\u2019s initial conclusions were misconduct with a recommendation for a written warning. After numerous comments and amendments from HR, the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/hr-interference-makes-dismissal-unfair\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">HR \u2018interference\u2019 makes dismissal unfair<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1839,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions\/1839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}