Employment Law Snapshot
Welcome – A Message from Darren Tibble
Hello, and welcome to my first official publication with DC Employment Solicitors!
Over the years, I have written many e-shots and blogged about my employment related ramblings and I have decided to return to my musings with a vengeance. BE WARNED – If you’re looking for several paragraphs quoting section 8 of the Employment Rights Act and Section 9 of the Equality Act that are riddled with legalese, I’m afraid that you will be mightily disappointed.
And for those of you who are into all that whizzy stuff on that interweb thing (and also want to see real footage of a bald, ginger lawyer making a fool of himself on screen…) you can also follow our YouTube channel and watch a video version of this Employment Law Snapshot (Or ‘ELS’ as I believe some of the trendier kids in town are calling it).
Right, that’s the welcome over… normal (well, sort of normal) content will now resume…..
Introduction
I read a great story in the Telegraph this week, in which I think they have found the most generous boss in the world. It’s been reported that Mr Jinyuan, the owner of a huge multinational company called Tiens Group and who’s also worth about $1.2 billion according to Forbes magazine, decided to celebrate his company’s 20th anniversary….. by taking over 6,000 of his employees on holiday to France!
Apparently, he booked 140 hotels in Paris and also took his employees on a trip to the Cote d’Azur where they stayed in four and five star hotels. It’s been reported that this staff jolly cost him £24 million of his own money.
Not wanting to be outdone by Mr Jinyuan’s generosity, we’re going on our own staff jolly in a couple of weeks. We’ll be having a nice long weekend staying at the luxuriously appointed Travelodge on the M180 just outside Scunthorpe. We’ve treated everyone to a voucher worth up to £8 to spend at the Beefeater Grill just round the corner – you know – the one by the sewerage works.
When we announced our little treat it’s fair to say that everyone at work was speechless. I can only assume that they couldn’t believe their luck……
Anyway, on with the law.
The Legal Stuff
This week’s case is called Southern v Britannia Hotels Ltd. The brief facts of the case are that Ms Southern was employed as a waitress by Britannia on a zero hours contract. She alleged that her line manager sexually harassed her for about 8 months. At the time, Ms Southern was 22 and had a history of mental health problems.
The detail of the alleged harassment is probably not suitable for publication but it included the fact that her line manager had regularly asked her to talk about her sex life. When Ms Southern complained to another line manager, she was told to make a written complaint, but nothing else was done.
Following the complaint, the allegations of sexual harassment got worse and included inappropriate comments, touching and kissing.
After 8 months or so, Ms Southern went on sick leave because of another allegation of bullying against a different employee. During a meeting with the hotel’s manager about the bullying allegation, Ms Southern also mentioned the sexual harassment allegations. She said that she hadn’t wanted to say anything because she was afraid that she would lose some shifts (don’t forget she was on a zero hours contract).
Ms Southern made a formal complaint which was investigated by the hotel manager. The line manager denied the alleged conduct. The Employment Tribunal eventually said that he didn’t do a good enough job; he didn’t get much information about the allegations and didn’t properly interview a witness. The hotel manager decided that there had been some inappropriate behaviour, but the line manager was not given any disciplinary sanction.
Ms Southern brought a claim against the company and her line manager.
When the company became aware of the tribunal claim, it decided re-investigate the allegations, although 10 months had elapsed since the original complaint. The line manager continued to deny the allegations. However, the new person who did the investigation didn’t read the documents from the first investigation, so it became clear that she wasn’t aware of some of the inconsistencies in the evidence. As a result of this, the company found that there was no conclusive evidence that most of incidents had happened. The company said that it believed that some kissing had happened, but that it had been partly encouraged by Ms Southern.
Ultimately, the Employment Tribunal decided that the line manager had sexually harassed Ms Southern. It found that Ms Southern was a credible witness, whereas the line manager’s evidence was contradictory. Interestingly, the company wasn’t successful in its defense that it had done all that was reasonable to prevent the harassment. The company was criticized for not implementing its policies properly; not investigating the allegations thoroughly enough and for failing to suspend the line manager or discipline him.
One of the headline features of this case was that Ms Southern was awarded £19,500 compensation for the injury to her feelings. The relatively high level of the award was influenced by the fact that the tribunal considered that, at the time of the allegations, Ms Southern was young and in a vulnerable state because of her mental health issues and also because she was afraid of losing shifts as a zero hours worker. The tribunal also considered that the line manager had abused his position of power which was then aggravated by the dismissive approach by the company to the flawed investigation.
So, the moral of the story is that if you, as an employer, are faced with allegations of harassment, it is vital that the allegations are taken seriously and properly investigated.
And Finally…
My never ending search for quirky employment related stories continues. This week, I read a fantastic story in The Express, who believe that they might have found the most tedious job in Britain. Mr Barry works as a volunteer at a charity shop, where he spends his days ……… assembling donated jigsaws to make sure that all of the pieces are in the box before they go on the shelves!!
To date – he’s checked 300 jigsaws and rejected nearly half of them. That said, he seems very happy with his work – he’s doing his bit for a charity and he’s happy that the customers won’t be disappointed with an incomplete puzzle.
Well, I say hats off to Mr Barry – good on you!!
I’ve always fancied myself as a bit of jigsaw puzzle expert. In fact, I can usually finish off a jigsaw in a couple of days, even though the box often says 2-4 years on it….
I think I can hear the groans from here. You were warned.
Until next time.
Darren
