A happy story that threatened to turn bad before a joyous ending

When Adele shared what she thought was some good news it nearly proved to be bad news for her career.

Adele, a library assistant, was excited and  overjoyed when a colleague informed her she was pregnant after years of IVF treatment.

But what happened a short time later left Adele shocked, fearful and concerned.

She was suspended from work for sharing private, confidential and extremely sensitive personal information about her colleague without permission

It happened after Adele spoke to another library assistant about her joy at the good news, but that individual had not been told. Adele wrongly assumed that other employees knew.

It would later be revealed Adele was the only person who was told, and it was naturally expected she would keep it secret.

Adele attended a fact-finding meeting held as part of the disciplinary investigation into the matter

She insisted during the meeting that she was never told the news was to be kept private, and she wrongly assumed colleagues also knew.

Adele pointed out that the same day she was told, it was posted on social media so other colleagues would have seen it.

The investigating manager said the news was posted in a private group, and Adele was the only member of staff included in it.

Subsequently Adele was invited to a disciplinary hearing to face an allegation of sharing private and confidential information without permission.

She was warned the library took such matters extremely seriously and a potential outcome to the hearing was dismissal.

It was an obvious worry to Adele, who had eight years’ service and an active written warning on her record for a previous disciplinary matter.

In that case she was lucky to avoid dismissal after making an inappropriate joke about a colleague and their sexuality, which was found to amount to discrimination.

On that occasion Adele exercised her right to be accompanied at the disciplinary hearing, and an experienced colleague acted as her companion.

When Adele asked that same colleague for help again, he said he would feel out of his depth this time but had a suggestion that could help.

He gave Adele the contact details for our Employee Support Centre.

Our representative discussed the case with Adele and reviewed the evidence to support the allegation.

The evidence consisted of a statement from the pregnant employee detailing how she was shocked and upset by what had happened, and another statement from the colleague Adele told.

The evidence was clear and Adele admitted what she had done, so our representative knew getting any type of positive result would depend on any mitigation in the case.

Our representative detailed the significant mitigating factors at the disciplinary hearing.

It included the employee’s IVF treatment being widely known about by colleagues, how this led Adele to genuinely believe others knew she was pregnant and how she  was never told to keep the news a secret. It was pointed out that the witness statement did not claim Adele was ever asked to keep it secret.

In addition our representative showed a screenshot of the social media post dated on the day Adele was told, which was used to demonstrate it was reasonable for her to, as it later emerged mistakenly, believe others knew.

The hearing was told of Adele’s remorse for causing upset to her colleague and of how apologetic she was.

It was asserted Adele’s action was an honest mistake and genuine misunderstanding and not deliberate, which is different from an act of gross misconduct which was being alleged.

Adele’s delight at her colleague’s baby news and how supportive she had been throughout her IVF treatment, was detailed to assert that what she did was not malicious or intended to cause upset.

Our representative did a comprehensive presentation detailing all of the mitigating factors.

Rather unusually, the disciplinary hearing chair did not adjourn the hearing in order to reach an outcome.

She asked Adele some questions about the allegation, before informing her the allegation had been dismissed and her suspension would be lifted.