1) staff asked money from potential customers - amazingly he lied to his own neighbors and collected money from them as potential customers while the promotion didn't state that employees could collect money from anyone including customers without authorization. His case was investigated but his neighbors (almost all of them involved) refused to become our witnesses. We would not have a case without any witnesses. However. luckily during the day of the inquiry, we managed to get support form the witness's superior (government agency) to force the witnesses to testify in our domestic inquiry. He was then dismissed based on two witnesses and one other charges were dropped since the witness named did not turn up. For me, even one witness testified against him would be more than enough. It's not the amount in question but the honesty and trust. He then filed his case at Industrial Court and this time I stand as witness. It was not a good experience even though you only stand as witness because you will be questioned by not only the company's lawyer but also by the defense council appointed by the claimant (ex staff). I managed to answer all questions and luckily the Chairman of the Industrial Court was with me when the defense council asked loose questions which I refused to answer. It required skill, knowledge and experience to avoid you from being trapped by the lawyer. I was confident that the company won the case, and we did!
2) My colleague replaced me to represent a company during conciliation at Industrial Department in Ipoh. When he came back, he told me he was screwed by the Industrial Relations officer in charged for not well prepared for the session. Somehow the session was postponed coz the union who was supposed to attend did not turn up. I attended the next session and the IR officer summon me to be in his office. He was surely not very nice and arrogant/stuck up. I responded seriously and acted arrogant too coz i did not see any reason for him not to treat me well. I responded to his question by saying it's company's right to terminate him and we did all it required by law to provide him natural justice. We had witness and he pleaded guilty, and the punishment (dismissal) was justifiable and just coz it involved money. There were no more trust between him and the company and the punishment should serve as example to other employees. Even tough we did not charge him on criminal breach of trust, CBT (coz if we did we had to proof him guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and our objective was not to charge him a criminal charge, but enough to serve him well and set example to others. The IR officer mellowed down after that (he knew I was an experienced IR manager myself), and requested for reschedule coz the union failed to attend again. I refused coz that was second time and the union did not even call to request for postponement. I told the IR officer I was wasting company's time and wasted company's money by attending the session twice when the union as if refused to attend. The officer agreed with me and I left the office after that. I did not receive any more letters from IR office related to that particular case again after that.
3) I had the experience negotiating with an ex employee I terminated due to poor performance. He was a senior manager when he was not confirmed to the position and terminated due to poor performance. The IR officer called me to negotiate settlement but I told him direct that there would be no settlement coz the company had taken the rightful and necessary action before he was terminated. I knew already he'd not ask for reinstatement even though conciliation at IR office was for terminated employee to claim for reinstatement. I did not mention about compensation at all during first meeting however the IR officer asked me to reconsider. I used delay tactic by saying I was not willing to consider settlement at all coz there was no case. He initially claimed 6 month salary as compensation but for a service of less than one year, the amount was ridiculous. He asked me to consider and I told him I needed approval to agree on any monetary settlement. In the next conciliation meeting about almost two months later, I told him that we only agreed to pay him 1/2 month instead of 6 month salary he demanded. That was only a token and I did not really agree that was a settlement. After much discussion, we finally agreed with only 1 month as token, which was indirectly also agreed by the IR officer. The case was finally closed.
There were a lot more cases I had the experience to handle, and each case was unique. I helped my company to settle a lot of cases either at IR office or out of court if the case was already registered with the IR court by convincing the claimants and his lawyer not to prolong the case further. Some cases took more than two years of hearing and still not settled. Furthermore, almost all cases involved low rank employee, hence settling out of court was not a big issue/amount of money. We pay more to lawyers than compared to the settlement amount :D. I was quite successful and lucky when I handled IR matters back then, Alhamdulillah.
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