Former Chief HR Officer awarded £101k at tribunal for sex discrimination

Former Chief HR officer is awarded £101,373 at tribunal, almost 8 years after the original tribunal hearing, over sex discrimination and unfair dismissal claims.

The court ruled that the company discriminated against her based on sex, after her performance was rated ‘partially achieved’ without conducting a proper year-end review. It was found that her gender influenced this, as her male counterparts' performance reviews were handled differently, which meant she received a reduced bonus.

At the 2018 tribunal the employees' (AB) claims, including sex discrimination, equal pay and unfair dismissal, were not upheld, but during AB’s appeal in 2018, the original ruling was overturned.

Following her promotion to CHRO, AB raised concerns over the reduction of her base pay from £500,000 to £425,000, which was below the pay of male board members. It was suggested that the decision to reduce her pay was made as it “seemed excessive", as she was “newly promoted to the executive and unproven at that level”. Despite this argument, a management consultancy firm made the independent assessment that AB’s role was above or equal to that of male board members. Before her end-of-year review, she highlighted to the CEO that she was the only woman on the board and was being paid 34% less than the lowest-paid man.

In response to this, the CEO said that the remuneration committee would not authorise an increase in her pay and asked if she was willing to consider other roles. in response to this, AB suggested that they reduce her hours instead, whilst remaining on the same pay. She was told that this would be discussed in her end-of-year review, but two dates that were scheduled for the meeting were unexplainedly cancelled. Although no formal review ended up taking place, the CEO rated her performance as ‘partially achieved’. This rating meant her bonus would be paid at 20%, rather than 50% for 'achieved’ and 60 to 75% for “exceeded”.

During the original tribunal hearing in 2018, the judge stated, “The claimant’s year-end appraisal process was not adequate in that the respondent did not go through the whole of the process with the claimant, whereas he appears to have done so with the other members of the executive who were on the same bonus scheme.” As well as this, the judge acknowledged that other members of the executive team were not treated as harshly as AB in their performance reviews, where there were performance issues.

Subsequent to this, it was suggested that AB's role was to be shared in half with her current deputy and she would now report to the COO. AB rejected this suggestion and after discussion about taking on a different role, she was given 12 months' notice of termination, which she stated was “unfair” and “unreasonable”.

As a result of this, she was awarded £76,270 for sex discrimination and £22,169 for unfair dismissal.

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