OK Blasphemous, here's the story.
2 years ago, two of the biggest Co-ops in the UK merged. Between them they had (at the time) 85,000 people working in the food sector alone, and a combined weekly turnover of £95m. The two companies were operationally different. The merger was to take over 2 years (including rebranding stores, which is only just complete).
At the time of the recruitment for this new store we were opening (14 months ago), there was a period of change happening (the two HR functions had to merge, but they were still operating as two seperate entities), and nobody really knew what was happening in terms of the HR function, and whos recruitment and training materials we were to use.
I, and my colleagues involved in the recruitment of this new store, were from the smaller of the two companies, and we used all their recruitment and training materials, as this is what we knew. The other company's training materials were completely alien to us, and we were on a tight deadline. The HR lady who was supposed to be helping us, from the other company never answered her phone, and thus we proceeded without her.
We were told that (as this store opening had been in the pipeline of the smaller company for a year) this store would be opening operationally under the smaller company, until the two businesses were operationally merged, but it turned out, they wanted it under the bigger company now to save costs later on. Getting our new staff onto payroll was another debacle. Our first staff started on 15th november, yet nobody actually got paid until 31st dec, because nobody at the bigger company actually knew this store existed. Frankly, yes, it was one long joke.
We just opened at the wrong time, and it was stressful for all concerned.
We now have a much more robust recruitment process. (But I know for a fact that some stores still use the old materials, there are vast stocks of them in some stores)
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And the disability thing - she has this badge which she takes pride in flashing all the time, whenever she thinks it might get her something. I dont know what it says on it, but she wears it round her neck. She probably knocked it up in MS Office for all I know. The first we saw of it was on her first day at work. The first we knew of her disability was during the induction - on the way out, after her manual handling video, she said "oh by the way, I cant do manual handling, lifting heavy objects is out of the question". I then had an awful sinking feeling.
I have nothing against disabled people, but I really dont see the point in them applying for a job which they would have difficulty doing. I mean, take my example. She cant stand for long periods, nor lift heavy objects. This pretty much rules out most jobs in a convenience store (the jobs which were explained to her during the interview, during which she didnt mention her disability). What "reasonable adjustments" could we make, besides moving her to a bigger store with sit-down checkouts, or an office? She has no transport. Its a no-win situation for all involved.
