Michelle's Last Day - Industrial Relations

Michelle was happy when she got home after working her last day at a local insurance company. She was looking forward to a few days off before starting in her new job in a company that specialises in caring for adults with learning disabilities such as Downs Syndrome.

Then it was all ruined for her. The manager at the insurance company phoned her to say that although he and she had totted up her hours of overtime together and they both agreed that she had worked 46 hours overtime, they were going to pay her for just 20 hours. Not only that but the promised Tesco shopping vouchers would not be forthcoming either.

She shouldn't have been surprised. Isn't it typical of an insurance company to look for ways to wriggle out of paying? Their stance will probably invoke some loophole or other and be perfectly legal, but it wasn't wise. Whenever Michelle thinks about them or they come up in conversation, she is going to remember this shoddy treatment along with the fact that her sales targets were set unrealistically high and impossible to meet.

The wise thing to do would have been to say "Here's the 46 hours pay we owe you, but we've rounded it up to 50 hours as a parting gift and we wish you well in your future". It really would not have cost them that much and they would have had decades of good wishes from Michelle who would have told people what a great company they were to work for. This is why they were unwise:- Their small-minded penny-pinching ways has created an ex employee who feels unfairly treated and angry and who could talk about it in negative terms for years.

And it did not have to be like that.