Employee Question

[billf1962]

Please Give me some recommendation on how you would handle this situation.

I am one of the owners of a chain of retail stores. Our General Manager at the home office sent a letter to a purchasing agent instructing him not to send purchase orders to our branch offices but to direct them to the home office. What the PA did was put a block on our account which did nto allow them to pull up the local store as a vendor in their computer system. this ulimately cost my company $70,000 in sales last year. This person works directly for my brother at the home office and the letter was not found out for approximately 5 months after it was sent. Since then, we have struggled to build the business back and I am sure it will cost us much more than the $70,000 that we have lost so far.

Please respond!

[Comtrad]

Well is it something he should have known easily not to do? $70,000 is a pretty big deal and if he knew what he was doing, and the mistake was just carelessness I would think you should let him go.

[Corey Bryant]

What happened to the POs when they went to the home office?

[billf1962]

That's just it. The business stop coming in.

Originally Posted by Corey Bryant

What happened to the POs when they went to the home office?

[ACRNYC]

This is a tricky issue, and sounds like a miscommunication along the way. But if the letter clearly stated where to send the PO's, and the PA blocked the account instead of rerouting, I think it's actionable. Since it's in writing, you can clearly prove that instructions were not handled properly, at a loss of $70,000. It definitely sounds like carelessness to me, and it's good that you have proof in writing.