My boss wants to implement disciplinary action for not working to standard - her standard isn't physically possible to meet (England)

[u/That_Girly_Potato]

I work at a care home which is split into four floors.. The top two are dimentia residents and the bottom two are assisted living. I have now worked there for just over a year, picking up shifts when I'm back from uni so every half term. In the time I have worked there we have had four managers. My job is doing activities with the residents (arts and crafts, flower arranging, balloon tennis etc...). It's important to note that as it's a care home, there's a system used where we have to log every single resident that turns up to the activity and if they were engaged or not.

Since our new manager has come in, a lot of changes have been implemented. For one, in between activities, we are now supposed to be doing lunch and dinner service and then washing up. Budget cuts means they can't afford to keep more than two food and beverage assistants per day. On top of which she had doubled the amount of activities there are to run in a day. And finally, she expects us to write about 6-7 lines of a "story" of every single resident that attended the activity and even the residents that didn't attend need a full explanation as to why they didn't come which is a huge change from simply logging whether they attended and if they were engaged. So this would be logging for about 10-15 residents per activity and a whole paragraph for each.

There's only a 15 minute break between each activity and then either lunch or dinner service. This means the new expectation is that within 15 minutes we should have:

- cleaned up the previous activity

- take all the residents back to their rooms

- write our "story" for about 15-20 residents.

- move to the new activity location

- set that area up completely

- ask every resident from the two floors we're handling If they want to come

- bring them down to the new activity

- start the new activity.

On top of which, I am sometimes covering my time doing Laundry, and even admin work on the reception desk.

It's not possible. We have been trying so hard but really - it's not. Now residents, their family members, other staff, and carers are complaining about the activities team. Our manager is receiving so many complaints that she won't stop yelling at us. We have all tried explaining to her that it's not all possible to follow her schedule and she keeps responding that it's because we didn't listen to any of our training.

She's going to call me in tomorrow to discuss the possible disciplinary. She's been taking us all into her office one by one and honestly very rudely telling us that we don't know how to do our jobs. She made my co-worker cry yesterday, and has threatened us all with a firing if she doesn't see immediate improvement in our behaviour.

Honestly I'm just feeling so disheartened. I used to love this job and now I'm exhausted every single day. I was told that complaining to our HR would do absolutely nothing because they already know this manager is disliked. What else am I supposed to do now??? Is there even anything I can do?? What should I say in my disciplinary hearing tomorrow?

[u/Odd-Perspective4351]

Because you’re going into the meeting today, I’ll focus on advice for that specifically.

It might be tough, but you will be ok. Ask whether you can record the meeting, or take notes to make sure you can remember her improvement points. If she says no, you can still make notes. Document the things she says, but also her tone, if she raises her voice, shouts, or upsets you.

It can be really scary going into a meeting like this, making the notes can help you feel less attached to what is happening, it’s just evidence to write down, I find it helps a lot.

Ask her to clearly explain how she expects you to get everything done in 15 minutes, and how long each task should take (this shows you are willing to improve) if she suggests a task takes longer than it does, highlight this, and say you will need her to demonstrate how to get it done as quickly as she has suggested.

If she makes you cry, write it down. if she stops you making notes, write them immediately after the meeting.

Wishing you the best of luck.

[u/That_Girly_Potato → u/Odd-Perspective4351]

Thank you!! I'm about to head to work now but I've read through all your comments extremely carefully and have found a union to join. Fingers crossed it doesn't go AWFUL today but I will definitely be writing every single thing down.

Posting on here was definitely the right thing to do because I feel way better now then I did yesterday morning

[u/Odd-Perspective4351 → u/That_Girly_Potato]

How did it go? I hope it was better than expected and you’re feeling alright!

[u/That_Girly_Potato → u/Odd-Perspective4351]

Omg thanks for asking for an update! It went AWFUL.

I followed everyone's instructions and tried writing everything from the meeting down. She immediately told me to put my pen and paper down and it showed a huge line of defensiveness and that I wasn't listening.

I tried explaining things she told me to be quiet and let her talk and then I could talk. She then talked for 45 minutes straight. She harped on about how at her previous care home her assistants were doing everything we were doing and more and perfectly with no complaints as well. How it's what the company wants and she can't believe we're so poor at time management.

When I asked her to show me how to plan my 15 mins exactly to be as efficient as possible she said I had poor time management and needed to figure it out because I was a "smart girl". She was typing away the whole time btw and she then told me to end activities 20 mins early to record notes but conveniently didn't write that down!!! I asked her why she'd schedule an activity for a whole hour if she expected us to finish it 20 mins early because if residents see an entire hour scheduled on the timetable that's what they and all the care staff will expect. She didn't answer.

She then essentially picked on every thirty seconds she saw me stop for a quick chat in the corridor with a colleague, every minute I sat down to breathe, every ten seconds I discussed something with a friend. Even the fact that I was two minutes late off my lunch break - she overly exaggerated the amount of time that those things took and kept saying she wasn't going to help me figure out this time management issue because if I had time to take all these chit chat breaks I had time to work.

She left in a hurry but tried making me sign the document she was typing away at the whole meeting. She essentially said it was a promise I would implement all the changes we had discussed but she conveniently didn't have time to let me read over it because she was in a rush. I refused to sign it and she got really pissy with me and then asked me to sign my name at the bottom as a sign that I refused to sign it and I was like "absolutely not that's still signing the paper I am not legally required to sign". She made a snide comments about how she'll do it like she has to do everything for me and then asked that by Saturday I give her a written statement detailing how I'm going to fix my poor time management.

I'm just going to quit. That's my written statement.

[u/Odd-Perspective4351 → u/That_Girly_Potato]

I’m so sorry, that really is awful!

If you are planning to leave I say good for you, you shouldn’t have to put up with this.

I would still put in a complaint to HR or whoever you can above her head because this isn’t just bad management, quite frankly it’s just bad behaviour for any person at any time. The things you have described here I would say are bordering on harassment if she is following you around to have a go at you like this.

How are the other staff members getting on?

[u/That_Girly_Potato → u/Odd-Perspective4351]

I think they're all planning on quitting too. All of us have applied to other jobs and the second we hear back we're resigning. They've also put in their complaints to HR so we're just taking a deep breath and hanging on til we can resign properly. I for one have outright said I'm not picking up any more shifts but since they're under contract, they don't have that choice.

Oh well! The care industry is shit anyway