I am going to dock an employees wage this week for quite frankly what was a shit job that he carried out.
It was a simple task of pressure washing some mono blocks and the 'finished' job was so bad that the customer called to ask when we were coming back to finish it. As far as I understood my employee at completed the works and the customer was 'extremely happy'. As it turns out she had gone out for the day at 12pm and when she returned at 6pm he wasn't there thus no conversation had taken place.
As a result I went back with employee to see him started and also asked if he thought it was an acceptable standard to which he responded 'absolutely not, its unacceptable'.
In my opinion, I should not have to be paying him again to re do a substandard job that he is well aware of was not acceptable.
He also bashed / dented the van while on site and denied it like a coward - yup, these things happen and its at my expense. He also smashed a window with a strimmer this week as well but again Im taking it on the chin and covering the expense. What I am trying to say is I believe Im generally a fair boss but a lesson needs to be taught here.
So, am I within the law to dock his wages?
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beat me to it
I'm interested to hear the outcome as I feel my guys can destroy tools and get away with it and Im expected to take it on the chin.
We recently lost a 20l gerry can with fuel in it, apparently it got stolen out the trailer. Its only recently ive realised that one of the guys has a bad habbit - when his machine runs out of petrol he goes to the van, get the fuel and leaves it whre hes been working and forgets about it.
Matt
Had a quick search and it looks as though you can not dock an employee's wages, except in some very particular circumstances:
Can I dock wages?
Understanding your pay - gov.uk
How long has he been with you?
Is this his normal manner? If he is normally good may be his personnel life is not good and he just needs a little support. Your support to him can make a massive difference and he could become a valued member of the team.
If he has been hard work previous issue a written warning giving details of what is wrong and how you expect him to improve and a time limit to improve in.
Unfortunately sending unmanaged staff to do something right sometimes bites us on the arse.
If you have had previous issues then you need to manage staff more closely. May be getting him to obtain customers signatures to agree work is satisfactory. Or checking up during then working period.
And sometime workers are just crap and need to go. But you need to release them properly.
I to agree with Harry and Mark
I'm 99% certain that most of us who've employed staff have gone through what you describe.
Whilst it's reasonable to expect a good job, there may be circumstances that have caused something to go wrong in your employee's personal life.
I'm sure you probably didn't sign up as an employer to manage welfare but it does go with the territory. How you deal with this situation can also have an impact on what happens next in your employee's life beyond work.
It might be worth sitting down and having a chat after work. Make him a cup of tea or better still take him somewhere to talk other than your work environment and definitely not the pub.
Of course, having said all of the above you cannot rule out simple negligence or him having a lack of interest in his work so be prepared to take the right course of action. But you really do have to give him the chance to explain so that both of you get the right outcome.
Couple of stop-offs for a read:
The window was smashed later in the week and the can at same time.
I don't believe he has issues at home - seems to have quite a good home life.
I am findig that unsupervised he is unreliable and supervised he has to be continually prompted to "get cracked on" instead of watching others or always grabbing the easy tool to work.
To be perfectly honest, he's only still in a job because I need him due to current workload and I can't fault him for turning up every day and certain jobs ie grass cutting maintenance runs he is very good at but he will absolutely cut corners if he thinks he can get away with it. He is simply a "chancer".
Firstly, I take it the employee is full time on PAYE. If so, then I am pretty sure that the answer is, no you can't dock wages. How you deal with this is probably down to how much you value the employee. If this he/she is a valued member of the team, then a 'word in his/her ear' should be enough at this stage. However, if as I suspect you are having doubts about him/her, then a formal meeting with a first warning in writing would at the very least set the wheels in motion for dismissal if his poor performance continues.
Employees will never cease to surprise though, 95% of the time, all is well and jogging along, then out of the blue, there will be a 'WTF' moment - it's all part of the 'fun' and up to us to manage. A careless attitude to your customers, such as your example, can be costly to you and spread into a careless attitude to tools and Health and Safety, so it must be nipped in the bud.
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