It’s been another interesting few months regarding cases being lodged at the Employment Tribunal, with a variety of issues ranging from unfair dismissal, racial discrimination, failure to make reasonable adjustments and unfavourable treatment as a consequence of employee disabilities.
Here are some headline examples:
A London property firm made the costly mistake of offering and then rescinding the offer to a candidate when ‘out of the blue’ in a meeting before she started, they asked her the ages of her children. Shortly after asking her this, they confirmed to her that they had withdrawn the offer, stating that HR had put a freeze on headcount.
The Employment Tribunal did not believe this and stated that the question ‘had no relevance to the issues in the meeting’.
Ultimately it was concluded that the job offer was withdrawn directly as a result of the candidates’ sex, with the tribunal stating: ‘We think it more likely than not that the claimant was asked this question because she is a woman and that the same question would not have been asked out of the blue of a man.’
As a result, the candidate was awarded £91,000 in compensation.
Tesco have been found to have unfairly dismissed and racially discriminated against an employee following incidents where the employee gave an inappropriate Secret Santa present to a colleague and also persuaded an employee to come into work even though she was unwell and against medical advice.
As a result of the complaints, Tesco instigated the disciplinary process, however they did not look into counter claims by the employee of racism against him, nor did they take into account his remorse. As a result, the tribunal determined that ‘in light of the failures in the disciplinary and appeal process to fairly investigate the allegations of misconduct against the claimant, including failing to consider his point about his colleagues racism, and the failure to give fair consideration to the considerable remorse that he showed', the tribunal found that the decision to dismiss the claimant was outside the band of reasonable responses for an employer.
An NHS cleaner was dismissed for taking 400 sick days over a four year period – during this time the tribunal found that the hospital failed to recognise that the employee had a disability under the Equality Act 2010, that they also failed to make reasonable adjustments and they failed to follow their own processes.
The hospital did follow some sort of process in that as an example, they engaged Occupational Health numerous times to conduct independent medical assessments, however even though the majority of the reports confirmed that the employee did have a disability under the Equality Act 2010, the final report said that she did not, and so the hospital relied on that last report to help them make their final decision of dismissal. In effect they focused on what they wanted to hear and disregarded the rest of the information they had at their disposal.
The Tribunal described the hospital’s decision to dismiss the employee as ‘fundamentally flawed and discriminatory’ and that the decision to deny that the employee was disabled was ‘irrational and wrong’.
If you would like any further information on this article or would like to discuss your employment law and HR matters, please don’t hesitate to contact at hello@alphr.uk and we will be delighted to help you.
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