REWARD INSIGHT
Nicola Mullineux, senior employment specialist for Peninsula, reviews decisions in three cases Redundancy, TUPE, stress
Thomas v BNP Paribas The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) had to decide whether a consultation described as ‘perfunctory and insensitive’ made a redundancy dismissal unfair. The claimant worked for the business for over forty years in various roles including director in the property management division. At the time of his dismissal, the claimant was employed as director in charge of private client work. In 2013, the business carried out a strategic review which found that there were more director and senior-director roles than the business or volume of work required. Initially, six people were identified at risk of redundancy but the claimant was
eventually placed in a pool of one. At the first consultation meeting, the claimant was told that the purpose of the consultation period was to provide an opportunity to consider alternatives. However, at the same meeting, the claimant was informed that he would be placed on paid gardening leave with immediate effect until the consultation process was finished. During this time, the claimant was not required to access work premises or work emails and he should not have any contact with clients, customers or colleagues. After this meeting, the claimant was sent a letter by his employer addressed ‘Dear Paul’ when his name was Peter.
At the end of the consultation process, there were no alternative vacancies available and no alternatives to redundancy so the claimant was dismissed. A letter of dismissal was sent with the wrong date of termination on it. The claimant appealed against the decision to dismiss but this was rejected. The claimant brought claims of unfair dismissal and age discrimination, but the Employment Tribunal (ET) dismissed the age discrimination claim. When deciding whether the employee was unfairly dismissed or not, the ET judged that getting the employee’s name wrong and handling the process in a perfunctory manner for a valued long-service employee was insensitive. However, the consultation was reasonable and it fell within the range of reasonable responses; therefore, the claimant was not unfairly dismissed. The claimant appealed. During the sifting process, the judge examining the appeal expressed a view on the matter.
...not required to access work premises or work emails and he should not have any contact with clients, customers or colleagues
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | March 2017 | Issue 28
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