Possibly taking work to court... advice please

[Redundancymare]

hope you can offer some advice - have posted in AIBU for traffic - sorry it’s so long!!

Been on mat leave since June 2019, had my first DD in July - when on mat leave my KIT days were taken from me and cancelled when I was due to attend an overseas work trip. My manager removed me from this 2 weeks prior as he felt I hadn’t communicated enough with them and he was unsure if I was attending. It had been my plan to attend since before I went on mat leave, & I had completed and overseas form attendance trip 2 months prior to attending. However I was removed.

I then raised a case with HR as I felt like this was the tip of the iceberg with a few things that had happened in my pregnancy such as

• removed from events where alcohol/late nights would be present
• mat leave starting 4 months prior to me finishing and taking over
• passed over for a promotion & manager stated to me he would struggle to promote me due to extended period of leave

After I raised this HR case I wasn’t invited to the work Christmas party or offered KIT days for a sales meeting due to take police 3 weeks before my return to work (so would have been very beneficial). My manager claimed due to my lack of response on the above event, he didn’t invite me to further events.

I had a meeting with my Hr department and manager early this year - my manager basically disputed all my claims and we didn’t reach a resolution. I advised HR that with a young baby to support I had no option but to ignore my discomfort at how I was treated and get back to work.

So I extended my mat leave to ensure I could take a full year plus annual leave. My team are at risk of redundancy where 2 of us are at risk, I was informed of this.

My manager sent me an email 8 days before I was due to return with a list of things to do on my first day back - other than this there was no contact since our face to face HR meeting, other than a 15 minute phone call where I phoned him out of the blue to discuss redundancy.

I returned to work last week at 8.30 and was called at 8.35 by my head of dept to tell me I was in the final 2 at risk of redundancy and now furloughed.

A few days ago I had my individual consultation where my HOD advised I scored 7/15 - note: I am the longest standing member of the team and have never received anything other than praise for my work. One element I scored a 2/5 for was my industry knowledge- my HOD advised this was due to the fact everyone else in the team has been in the industry longer than me. I am the youngest in my team by several years - so can’t match some experience my colleagues have as I was in secondary school when they were starting out.

I’ve spoken to ACAS who basically advised as I raised a HR case previously with comments of a discriminatory matter - I shouldn’t suffer any further detriment I.e. redundancy.

This is now being looked into by the redundancy HR manager (she was unaware of my previous HR claim).

Can someone advise where I stand on this? Are my work allowed to do this? My bosses are very big on team culture (In fact the reason they told me I didn’t get a promotion was because I didn’t call everyone in the team enough to say hello! We are field based) I feel like I’ve ruffled some feathers and now they think the easy option is to get rid!

Giving you a low score on industry knowledge due to the fact others have been in the industry longer than you is potentially age discrimination.

Similarly, passing over you for promotion due to your extended leave is potentially sex discrimination.

Your employer can make you redundant provided their reasons for choosing you as opposed to other employees are not discriminatory.

It sounds like your relationship with your manager has broken down. It may be that your best hope is that they offer you a settlement agreement. This involves them paying you a sum of money to leave and you agreeing that you won't take them to tribunal.

You may want to consult a lawyer who specialises in employment matters. If you have legal cover through your home insurance, your insurers may pay for you to get some advice.

I think there is some confusion here.

Firstly a person isn’t made redundant a role is. So they can make your role redundant then try to find you another role, if not then terminate and pay redundancy,

I think you have misunderstood what acas has said to you also, there is no way they would or should have told you your role can’t be made redundant as you had a previous complaint of discrimination. The business is fully entitled to Make your role redundant if the business doesn’t need it any more. It is on the business to prove they do not need the role.

I think you need to take some further discussions, again with your employer to understand what redundancy is and the process Ie your role, redeployment, termination etc and acas because I suspect you’ve misunderstood them or you’ve been given terrible advice that is inaccurate.

Your performance on the role is also not linked to redundancy because as said it’s the role that’s made redundant first and foremost, if they are unable to find you another role, then they can terminate your contract as your role is redundant.

Hi thank you! 2/7 roles are racing redundancy - so it’s not a case of my job no longer existing, we are all field based sales roles so it’s based on scoring rather than individual role.

Your performance on the role is also not linked to redundancy

That is rubbish. Where an employer is selecting individuals from a pool for redundancy they are allowed to take performance into account.

It is not illegal to make someone redundant when there is a history of discriminatory comments from management but it is very risky for the employer. A tribunal may well conclude that the redundancy is actually a disguised unfair dismissal.

Ah, ok, so they are reducing head count from seven to five? And basically they pick best candidates for the role? Is there no difference Ie. Geographical, products etc?

You should consult a solicitor but to be honest you’d need to prove you were better than at least one person who stayed and they picked you for discriminatory reasons, and with your feedback it seems they have prepared for this. I doubt you can argue it’s age discrimination that you have less ind knowledge than others, it’s either true or it’s not.

However as it’s sales, I assume you have performance indicators, how much you sold, which could help if you can show you routinely out performed others, or that you’re more able to take on a larger portfolio than others.

I doubt you can argue it’s age discrimination that you have less ind knowledge than others, it’s either true or it’s not

Rubbish again. The OP told us that her HOD said the reason she got a low score on this is that she hadn't been in the industry as long as others on the team. That means knowledge is being used as a proxy for length of time in the industry, which is potentially age discrimination. If they want to use industry knowledge, they need to be able to point to specific gaps in the OP's knowledge.

Also, as I said earlier, the grounds for refusing promotion sound like sex discrimination.

@Redundancymare - treat Bluntness100's advice with caution. I'm afraid she has a history of giving poor advice on employment matters and trying to shout down those who actually know what they are talking about.

Hmmm so if someone had changed career later in life and had limited industry knowledge due to this would that also be age discrimination? Dont think so.

Bluntness100 This is a genuine question, do you work in HR or have employment law experience?

Not exactly but I have experience of managing large scale redundancy events.

@Bluntness100

Not exactly but I have experience of managing large scale redundancy events.

Why are you giving legal advice when you don’t have the relevant experience?

@CloudsCanLookLikeSheep - ops situation could be indirect age discrimination. Older people will be much more likely to have a larger number of years of experience in the industry. Not true in every case but in most. For example discrimination against part time workers can be indirect sex discrimination as women more likely to work part time. It’s complicated and there are other requirements to prove but it’s certainly capable of being age discrimination.

There is important employment law protection for women on maternity leave who are placed at risk of redundancy. This special protection is because it is recognised such women are in a vulnerable position. The extra protection means that if there is a suitable alternative role you get the right to be offered that role ahead of others. Applying this to your situation, if there will be roles in your team that are continuing and that you have the skills to perform (or could do with further training) then you should be offered one of these roles even if you score lower than the colleagues you are being scored against. Here is a guide from ACAS on the subject. Please read page 9: archive.acas.org.uk/media/3447/Managing-redundancy-for-pregnant-employees-or-those-on-maternity-leave/pdf/Managing-redundancy-for-pregnant-employees-or-those-on-maternity-leave.pdf

In case your manager or HR disputes this or how it applies then I would provide them with a copy of Regulation 10 of the Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations 1999 which sets out this special protection: www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3312/regulation/10/made

Good luck

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@CloudsCanLookLikeSheep - ops situation could be indirect age discrimination. Older people will be much more likely to have a larger number of years of experience in the industry. Not true in every case but in most. For example discrimination against part time workers can be indirect sex discrimination as women more likely to work part time. It’s complicated and there are other requirements to prove but it’s certainly capable of being age discrimination.[/quote]
I get that but think it would be hard to win a case on this basis. I work in this field. It's not as easy as you seem to think to win an indirect discrimination case.

No-one has said it is easy to win an indirect discrimination case.

It is well established that using length of service is potentially indirect age discrimination as a younger person has less opportunity. Basing industry knowledge on length of time in the industry rather than looking at the actual level of knowledge is therefore a risky approach for the employer and may be indirect age discrimination. However, we don't have enough information to say definitively whether it is indirect age discrimination in this case. That is one of the reasons the OP needs to see a solicitor.

@CloudsCanLookLikeSheep - how do you know my thoughts on how easy it is to win indirect discrimination claims?