How to avoid dismissal

[dave94]

Hi all,

I am an IT developer and my work is to write software for my employer's website. I am having a bit of trouble at work. I recently finished 2 years with my current employer. My head of department has started first phase of a capability process. It means he discusses with me issues and will observe my performance for one month. He has put two points 1. My interaction with the team and 2. Do it right first time. I recently worked on a project along with another developer. I took lot of initiatives on this project and did 80% of work. So it was kind of assumed that I am responsible for this project and I was being called in all the meetings. There were very few defects during Testing phase. But unfortunately there were some issues in the project because of faults of System and Testing people and couple of defects from me which were not caught by Testing. I had few arguments with my head of department during the project duration and I believe he is just witch hunting. Meeting happened on Monday and I was told that Head will set objectives for me which I sign off. But I haven't being given objectives yet. Next process in capability process is first written warning if there is not progress and then final written warning.

 

Please advise.

[SabreSheep]

Hi there

 

Someone should be around to answer your questions at some point.

 

I would add for starters that you need to make sure notes are taken in those meetings and are accurate and that you keep a copy.

 

Now would be a good time to join a trade union.

[Emmzzi]

Best advice is not to argue with head of department, no matter how wrong they are. There is no room for arguing in business.

 

Deliver exactly what is asked. You can highlight concerns as you go along, maybe in your risk and issue log, but unless they say otherwise, you deliver to the letter.

[altobelli]

Don't agree with the last post. You need to make sure that you raise issues when you disagree, otherwise you could be criticised later in the process for not doing so. Business is about delivering results, not wielding power, and engagement of and feedback from employees is crucial.

 

 

If you feel that the Head of Department is misusing the company disciplinary policies to shift blame or get back at you then you need to raise this too, at least say that you feel there is a possibility of this happening. With your type of work its very important to make sure responsibilities are established fairly and push back if this is not being done. Don't sign off if there are any objectives you don't agree with. Make sure that goals are established and tracked and that they don't change over time, i.e. that you're not being set up to fail.

[stevemLS]

There is a huge difference between raising issues and having arguments.

[altobelli]

Not really, depends on how one defines 'raising issues' and 'arguments'.

[dave94]

Hi. My head of department had agreed for a period of observation of 1 month. I was not given any plan of improvement or any written communication of areas of concerns. Now after one and half months later all of sudden he scheduled a meeting on Friday (last day before I go on long parental break) a meeting and told that my performance hasn't improved and that he is starting a formal performance improvement process. During the meeting when I asked him specifics about why he thinks my performance was not good enough, he had no answer. He said he will send an email later in the day. Meeting is scheduled on 10th Sept.

 

 

"Following on from today’s meeting, areas that I have identified as cause for concern are outlined below. These are areas that we have covered before during informal meetings. This is not an exhaustive list; it is a list of the main areas & approaches that have led to the start of a formal process.

 

This summary is provided as a gesture of goodwill ahead of a formal meeting on your return to work, during which we will talk through the full list of concerns and examples. As such, I am not prepared to embark upon discussion via email or other channels ahead of that meeting.

 

Attitude & approach to coding

Refactoring code without building in appropriate levels of unit testing and without sufficient design and planning ahead of starting work

Working in isolation without communication or QA of design

Commitment to completing work by a given deadline – for example, by the end of sprint, or by the end of the day.

 

Attitude & approach to teamwork

Preferring to work in isolation – insufficient technical discussion with colleagues before taking on tasks & reluctant to work in pairs

Submission of code to QA without sufficient testing – and dismissal of QA concerns about errors during test

Interaction in meetings – constructive criticism is welcome, but have concerns around negative attitude

Interaction with development team – communication of issues/problems"

 

Last one and half month was quite friction less and I was trying to keep a low profile and do lot of work. All of above issues are false.

 

I am not sure how to get out of this mess. From today I am going on a 5.5 weeks of unpaid parental leave plus annual leave. He didn't like me taking such break from work.

 

Can someone please suggest me good trade union for IT professionals.

[Emmzzi]

Joining a union is like an insurance police; you need to sign up before the accident, not after

 

I note that list has no actual examples in it. On your return from leave, not before - no point giving them weeks to create evidene - in writing, ask for specifics examples, so you are clear what they are referring to.

 

Have you got a copy of the company performance policy? Usually they follow ACAS guildelines and there will be another 2 monitoring periods to go....

[dave94]

Thanks Emmzzi.

[dave94]

Thanks a lot for all your help. I had raised my concerns with HR about the whole process and unilaterally extending the informal review period beyond initial 1 month period without informing me. Now they seemed to have backed down and there will be a restart of the informal process on 3rd September when I am back to work. There will be again one month review period and they will judge me at the end of that period. Any suggestions on how to get through this? Seems keeping a low profile and doing everything right is also not good enough. When I told my head of department last week that for one and half months I kept to myself. He said that's the problem. You like to work in isolation. Software development is not exactly like Production line and doing everything perfect is almost impossible. I heard no one comes out of PIP process. I am not in a state to change the job at the moment.

 

At this time can I apply for trade union or unemployment insurance?

[tobyjugg2]

dave94,

Are you working under prince2 ?

Sounds like 2 major issues they might be alluding to there:

 

Firstly and possibly most important

Submission of code to QA without sufficient testing – and dismissal of QA concerns about errors during test

Interaction with development team – communication of issues/problems"

 

Are you aware of what they might be referring to?

 

I would suggest you 'up your game' on your own testing, and you take any issues raised by the testing team seriously and give them proper and documented attention.

If you are changing anything significant, then ensure you inform the team lead. In fact keep him/her fully apprised of state of play. Be aware who has responsibility to authorise changes - it probably isn't you.

There is little worse than deadlines missed due to errors which should have been trapped and dealt with, unless its implementations with them.

 

Secondly:

Interaction in meetings – constructive criticism is welcome, but have concerns around negative attitude

 

They do need to be made aware of possible issues, but the way they are presented is everything. Go with possible issues and potential solutions/traps to catch them so they are documented in minutes - and then know when to shut up

 

DON'T keep your head down (below the parapet) do up your game with what they have identified.

[dave94]

Thanks tobyjugg2

[tobyjugg2]

You are welcome. I've been there were code looks right but some testpack has thrown an obscure error.

 

Always remember 'the cardboard programmer'

Sometimes just talking it through with someone who gives no real input clarifies the issue in your mind,

and sometimes the cardboard programmer sees something and grunts and you think How the Flip did I miss that.

 

Give it a go, the cardboard programmer is one of the best tools you have, even when they don't do more than grunt - often doesn't even need to be a programmer.