Experts View Sought To Initate Action For A Past Action

Dear Experts,

At the outset sorry for sending an very elaborate query for your valuable guidance .

I have joined a new Company (Pvt. Ltd. Co.) The Company was started by 9 Founder Directors. Currently there are only 4 Founder Directors who visit the Factory regularly. Till 2008 there was a Consultant, who used to guide the Directors and Senior Management Staff. Subsequently a Core Team was formed by the Founder Directors.

One of the Founder Director wants the Board / HR to initiate action against Mr. VP, a Vice President of the Company on the following issues:

a. Falsification of Attendance Register (Signing the Attendance Register without attending office) in 2006-07: Mr. VP had not attended office on a particular day and had subsequently signed the Attendance Register as Present. There is no memo / notice issued to this effect in the personal file of Mr. VP.

b. Share trading activities during office hours using office Internet facility in 2010-11: The Founder Director informs that Mr. VP has been using the internet facility in the office to do share trading business during office hours for which he has proof from the System Admin.

c. Arrogance during discussion: The Founder Director informs that during one of the discussion in 2015, Mr. VP replied arrogantly.

d. Working in an inebriated condition with the workers in 2015-16: Employees have been working in a factory continuously for more than 16 hours per day for a week to complete a task as per the commitment given to the customer. On the last day, the customer was supposed to leave the factory around 8.00 p.m. Around 13 employees including Mr. VP had planned for a happy hours as they had been working continuously for 4 days and nights. They arranged to have alcoholic drinks at night and proceed home. Unfortunately for them the customer went out for Dinner and planned to come back. Hence the employees had drinks around 10.00 p.m. (night) and came to the factory only after the customer returned after dinner.

e. No cordial relationship down the line leading to suicidal attempt by one of the employee: It is reported that one of the employees who was working under the said Mr. VP attempted to commit suicide by writing a note against few Managers. The Founder Director informs that he meet the employee in the hospital and saved the Managers from being harassed by the Police. The said employee was on leave for a week. There is no records with HR on this issue.

f. No motivational attitude towards the employees under him: The Founder Directors informs that 60% of the employees reporting to Mr. VP him are not happy with him.

The Founder Director who wants action to be initiated feels that the above action by a Vice President is unethical and unacceptable by any standards. He also feels that his behavior is counterproductive and gives an impression of no checks and balances are in force in our company.

The Company strength is 200+ and 85 employees report to Mr. VP. The career growth of Mr. VP in our Organisation is as follows:

08th December 2003: Joined the Company as Manager.
June 2008: Promoted as Senior Manager.
May 2010: Promoted as Deputy General Manager.
June 2011: Promoted as Vice President

Expert view / guidance is sought on the above issue.

Regards

Dear Harish,

I am little surprised at your post. Notwithstanding misconducts, why action was not initiated immediately? What was hold up? Nevertheless, paragraph-wise replies to your post as below:

Point (a) and (b): - These are too old. Why action was not taken that time itself? Notwithstanding this misconduct, why the said person was promoted to senior level in 2010?

Point (c): - Why show cause notice was not issued immediately?

Point (d): - If few workers were found working in inebriated conditions, then why domestic enquiry was not conducted that time itself? By the way, which law permits workers to work for 16 hours? Who is responsible for the transgression of the Factories Act?

Point (e) and (f): - This is the management style of the individual and it cannot be construed as "misconduct" as such.

Final Comments: - Overall I find failure of management style of Founder-Director more than the behaviour of VP. All along VP was in good books of Founder-Director and now VP is in bad books. For the progress of the company, these whims and fancies do not work.

VP was unfit to be promoted to this level, yet he has been given promotions. At this stage, Founder-Director can very well call him in his office and tell the VP to put in his papers. To build the ground, for the mistakes that have happened in the last week or fortnight, issue him show cause notice. Warn him on receipt of his reply. Do this 1-2 times and tell him to put in his papers.

Lastly, what is your designation? Is Founder-Director wanted to shoot from your shoulders? If yes, then refrain him from doing so. You have joined the company just recently. Let the Founder-Director clean the muck that has been gathering all along. If you are just HR Manager, then play safe and tell Founder-Director that you cannot initiate any action against VP. However, you may give advice to him as and when necessary.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

If you go through the details the company has rewarded him with Promotions continuously in the year 2008 / 10 & 11 and now wants to initiate action which is not at all acceptable. You also need to check the Performance rating of the employee concerned for the last 4 yrs and if it is good then you can not even quote the misconducts if occurred in previous years hence you have option to initiate action on the recent happenings.
As rightly mentioned Mr.Divakar your director wants to make you scape goat. I opine that the appointment order might have signed by the Directors hence the disciplinary process should also be from their desk. In case your company don't have any legal consultant then better obtain opinion from a legal consultant & basing on his opinion go a head.

Answers;

Falsification of Attendance Register (Signing the Attendance Register without attending office) in 2006-07: Mr. VP had not attended office on a particular day and had subsequently signed the Attendance Register as Present. There is no memo / notice issued to this effect in the personal file of Mr. VP.

Too late in the day.No action is possible.

b. Share trading activities during office hours using office Internet facility in 2010-11: The Founder Director informs that Mr. VP has been using the internet facility in the office to do share trading business during office hours for which he has proof from the System Admin.

Again too late for action.

Are there any such clear rules in the company regarding private use of internet.

Arrogance during discussion: The Founder Director informs that during one of the discussion in 2015, Mr. VP replied arrogantly.

Very subjective and and again too much of time has passed by.

d) Similar query was posted few months ago,use search button to locate this post and several replies given by members.

E and F as learned member Dinesh said, it is purely a style of management and should have been pointed out at that stage and not used subsequently to settle scores.

The VP has been given promotions over the years and now old issues are being raked up.

Being a VP you as HR can only facilitate action but are not competent to act.Board of Directors can act if they feel like.However the whole issue is hazy and legal action can be easily challenged by VP in a court of law.

Give right advice and steer clear of getting involved personally.

Dear Mr.Harish,
It is clear that at least one of the actions of the VP can be proved ie trading during hours - in case net usage record is available.
What kind of action does the management want ? Dismissal ? If yes than check the terms of engagement and in case clause exists with regards to misuse of property/IT equipment , than the person can be dismissed on these grounds.
In case you give him show cause notice, and he knows that he may be dismissed, than most likely, he will offer to resign instead of facing dismissal.
Other points may be difficult to prove with out long drawn domestic inquiry.
Regards,
Col.Suresh Rathi

In view of the details, to me it seems to be purely an academic exercise, not a real life situation. More so, the querist has preferred not only to remain anonymous, but also has failed to mention, in what capacity he is assigned the job of taking any action against the so called VP.
Mr. Divekar has rightly raised questions on the inaction of the management. The question arises, if the situation was so gravy, how and why he could get frequent promotions to rise up to the level of a VP?

I agree with the opinions of Mr.Dinesh and Mr.Dhingra Sir, for the questions raised in the matter.
Dear Seniors, Such incidents are happening in the HR management as I am finding it some thing new.
Adoni Suguresh

Dear Harish

In this case I am completely go with Mr. Dinesh Divekar.

Once the attendance is marked, why the attendance is not closed on daily basis. The HR has given room to all the staff to falsify the attendance any time during the month before commencement of Salary process.

As you are planning to corner the Senior Management person, you will be in trap and finally the HR will be blamed and the senior person available in HR will get black mark.

There are so many software available in market. With that usage you could have blocked the websites irrelevant to your organization. Why it was not done. Again the HR/System Admin Team will be blamed for not blocking the irrelevant websites.

If a person is bold enough to behave arrogantly even with the co-founder member, then think about the hold he have in his office. If you touch you will be in trouble and your survival will be a big question mark.

How do you register their attendance? Do you maintain in time and out time for the employees? If so, on the first day of 16 hours itself why did you not trigger any mail to the VP for seeking some explanation, so that you can obtain the approval from Factories Inspector & permission from management.

Once the VP can manage even from your office about the attempt to suicide case of employee, then you can think about his power in the organization. Be cautious and careful while handling such personalities which may endanger your career growth.

He may not have the motivating power but he give productivity, that's why 60% of employees are deployed under him. Now you can imagine his strength and power in his organization.

As a matter of fact, the Co-founder Director does not want to take any action from his side, even though he got frustrated. If he take any action against him, then his organization will have great loss. But he want to take control over him. That's the reason he want to use you as a weapon. You can advise only to the directors to talk to the VP and sort out the issue amicably and act as advised by Mr. Dinesh Divekar.

From my side I can add one more sound advice is, In the board of directors meeting they can create a new department and post the VP and place only 2 or 4 employees under him as like policy creation or restructuring the organization towards its part of development and for his post they can post someone who is suitable for the vacancy.