17 year old son let go from job

[I love walmart]

My son is studying for A levels and has a 12 hour job in a supermarket. Last night he was told 15 minutes into his 4 hour shift that this was his last shift. He was a good lad and worked the shift even though he was upset.
He has been there 15 weeks. He was told around the 10 week mark that he needed to make some improvements if he was to be taken on permanently at 12 weeks. He told them that he would make the improvements but was concerned at the lack of training and support he had. They said to him he would have another meeting just before the 12 week mark to follow things up. The meeting never happened.
I know the supermarket and their rules very well because until a few months ago I worked there in a very similar department. I am pretty cross about the whole thing. At the 12 week mark there was no meeting to say he had to have an extended probationary period, so he assumed he was permanent. And I know from my experience that is how it works. He should from 12 weeks on be treated as a permanent member of staff and subject to the usual drawn out reviews and disciplinary procedures.
Since the 10 week meeting telling him he wasn’t performing well, there has been no further training, no chats and certainly no follow up meeting 2 weeks later that was promised. He was in fact asked to do over time last weekend. Not sure why you would ask an under performing member of staff to do that?
So what would you do?
I believe they haven’t followed their own procedures and have treated him unfairly.
He has asked to see a copy of the notes from his 10 week meeting as a starting point.
Any other advice?
With respect though, I don’t want to hear “tough luck, let it go” I have seen this company treat too many people badly. One of the main reasons I left was because of the inadequate training for new starters. I could not carry on working in a high risk food preparation environment with people who were ill equipped to deal with it.

[Pjamas]

What was the reason they gave - was it down to the underperformance notes before or did they give another reason?

[I love walmart]

Originally Posted by Pjamas

What was the reason they gave - was it down to the underperformance notes before or did they give another reason?

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Yes. They said he hadn’t improved. Though there hadn’t been any further training or feedback given since that meeting.

[Andybear]

Reading your last paragraph, did you know what an awful company it is to work for before your son started work there and if so did you encourage him to get a job there or did he do it off his own bat with no input from you?

[shona]

He should ask for feedback as to why he was let go. Even if they didn’t follow procedures there would s probably little he can do. The way some companies treat young people is very poor and I understand your frustration as my daughter was let go because she couldn’t work an extra 4 shifts without warning. They are not all like this, my son has a part time job at McDonald’s and they are really good but again it can depend on the franchise. Don’t let him lose confidence and get out there and find job where he is treated with more respect.

[Pjamas]

Does he feel that he did improve or did he realise that he needed training to improve his performance - it’s hard to visualise without knowing what he had to improve on. If it was something like punctuality or customer service skills then I suppose it’s self explanatory but if it’s a specific measure of a distinctive skill then it’s more complicated. Do you think the people there knew you had had a fractious relationship with the company and felt he was somehow part of that or that he was perpetuating that attitude? So sorry he lost his job, maybe he would be better somewhere without historical tensions.

[400ixl]

There is no such thing in law as a probationary period. It's just a decision point they arbitrarily put in place, but can effectively give any employee their notice within the first two years.

Sounds like their communication has been poor and this is particularly bad when dealing with a young employee.

They have not done anything outside of their rights, but have executed it poorly.

Not sure what outcome you are looking for, the decision won't get reversed, you could put in a complaint about how they went about it to try to improve the future for others. Sounds like it is a systemic problem within that store or organisation though.

Sorry your DS had this experience, good luck to him in finding another job.

[sully301]

I'm surprised you encouraged him to work there if it had unsafe practices and had a tendency to treat people badly! I'm sure that many of us have had a terrible employer when we've been younger and although you don't want to hear it i do think you just need to put it down to experience and move on.

[I love walmart]

Originally Posted by Andybear

Reading your last paragraph, did you know what an awful company it is to work for before your son started work there and if so did you encourage him to get a job there or did he do it off his own bat with no input from you?

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The last paragraph was relating to the reasons why I left. As a long-ish standing and experienced employee I was being leant on too much by inexperienced and poorly trained youngsters. I begged management to sort out their training methods and warned them of the dangers of their current systems but they did not see my point. They did suggest I was ideal management material and wanted me to apply for a department manager job but I only wanted a simple part time job. The department managers are ridiculously over worked and taken advantage of. I actually left on quite good terms funnily enough!
Since then things have gotten worse, just as I predicted they would. When my son told me he had applied and got a job I was wary. My first thought was actually for the department, I thought “oh no not another kid who won’t get trained properly and do a bad job”. But then my friends who still work there said “if it’s not your 17 year old, it will be another one. Better he gets the £9.20 an hour”
He also wanted to take the job, so there wasn’t a lot I could do. I was hoping it would be ok but hey ho...

[I love walmart]

Originally Posted by Pjamas

Does he feel that he did improve or did he realise that he needed training to improve his performance - it’s hard to visualise without knowing what he had to improve on. If it was something like punctuality or customer service skills then I suppose it’s self explanatory but if it’s a specific measure of a distinctive skill then it’s more complicated. Do you think the people there knew you had had a fractious relationship with the company and felt he was somehow part of that or that he was perpetuating that attitude? So sorry he lost his job, maybe he would be better somewhere without historical tensions.

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I left on pretty good terms funnily enough, so I don’t think it’s because of me.
The things he was being pulled up on were strange. One thing they said was that he didn’t look like he was enjoying himself. Another was that someone ‘overheard’ him saying he wasn’t that bothered about the job. And then (this one really pees me off), they had a photo of a poorly cleaned piece of equipment that he never cleaned properly. It was a huge oven that he hadn’t been trained in cleaning and it happened 5 weeks prior! So for 5 weeks they were potentially letting him clean poorly. How on earth can you improve stuff when you don’t know you’re doing it wrong?