Discrimination case help please ?

[Mosman]

Ok so yesterday I attended a grievance hearing, I had outlined my concerns which were basically pushed back onto me and I was asked why I didn't raise these concerns at the time, why I hadn't documented and emailed them to my line manager who had the authority to fire me with a weeks notice I wonder.
Then the HR chick asked me if I had misunderstood, please resign and come back when your children are older and you can cope with the job. I don't think he could have been any clearer tbh.

So what would/should I do from here ?

I left the meeting stating that if I had to continue to be managed by him I felt I was forced to resign, but I feel forced to resign by their attitude trying to blame me for being bullied and harassed.

Can I do that ? I want to leave asap but have a months notice in my contract.

Sat having a coffee after seeing clients, the day hadn't gone brilliant, instead of offering feedback about why we'd not seen certain people, what to do better next time I was told to resign. No misunderstanding.
He has no grounds to sack me or he would have by now. So he wants to go of my own accord so he can tell everyone he managed me out.

You won't say why your manager says it though. I think you're hiding something.

Why he says it - I haven't a clue, why would anyone in this day and age with half a brain be so blatant ? I doubt he would racially discriminate but yet feels happy to comment on my children being a hinderance.

one of the key principles of employment law is that you must give your employer every reasonable opportunity to put right whatever is wrong before bringing a legal claim.

So in terms of what you do now, you don't have to accept their outcome, but you need to wait for what the outcome is first. If you feel the result/proposed action they come back with isn't sufficient, you can appeal their decision. If they still don't resolve the problem to your satisfaction you can resign and bring a claim for sex discrimination if you want to.

Depending on how the employer handled the grievance/what steps they were proposing to take to resolve your concerns, a tribunal may or may not feel you were justified in resigning because of this issue.

But unless I'm reading wrongly, your employer hasn't responded yet.

Especially after HR told him to stop it once, he can't seem to help himself.

Ok flowery thank you that's what I was trying to find out, how much time I needed to allow them, so just not wanting to work for them anymore as a result of this matter won't be enough ?

op, I think the point though is when and where and how these comments were made. e.g. if you'd just had to leave work in a hurry because one of the children needed picking up from school because of illness and this caused irritation, then the comment has been made in a different context to say, having said the same thing without any provocation iyswim.

People can't give you accurate advice if you don't outline the context, because context is important, whether you think the comments were discriminatory or not.

If I had a member of staff (or indeed if I worked with someone) who was constantly taking time off for the kids, always on the phone to the nanny/childminder during work time, constantly having to run out at a moment's notice, I would think that perhaps their children impacted far too much on their actual working day and I would wonder whether a different type of job would suit them better. And yes, I would find it annoying. I might not say it because it's not pc to do so, but in those circs I don't actually think it's wrong to think it.

But that would be different from if I had an issue with mothers in the workplace in general, because lots of mothers manage to hold down a job and balance that with the kids without the one impacting too heavily on the other.

Also, you need to think about what you want to gain from this. Contrary to popular belief, discrimination is incredibly difficult to prove, but it also does not carry vast payout as we would like to think it might. So while you might want to bring a legal case, you need to consider:

How much it is likely to set you back financially and in terms of the emotional impact.

What you are looking to gain, be that financial/physical i.e. in terms of the person you are making the claim against.

And you need to think about how this is going to impact on you in the future. Fact is that once you take your employer to court you won't be able to continue working there. So you need to consider whether taking an employer to court will impact on your future employment prospects. Because rightly or wrongly, in some industries, it is very likely to do so. Is a potential few thousand £ worth making yourself unemployable and earning you a reputation as a troublemaker?

Sadly, these types of cases rarely have an actual positive outcome, because while the win is positive in the short term, unfortunately many employers are put off by the idea of someone who is prepared to take them to court..

No, because you haven't given your employer the chance to deal with it. Particularly as it's one manager. In theory at this point they could potentially sack him, they could move you to another manager and not make you work with him again, various different actions they could take which would prevent this happening again. If you resign then bring a claim at this point they'd just say "well we were considering whether we should dismiss him for gross misconduct but Mosman resigned without giving us the chance to do that".

Ok then. Very simply as you seem determined not to answer. Why does he feel that your children are a hindrance. What reason, real or perceived has he to believe that. There must be something giving him that impression so WHAT IS IT? I think you know he possibly has a point and you are therefore being deliberately evasive.

Ok, I have never in 9 months had to leave work to deal with the children, ever.
I employ a full time nanny to make sure of that.
I was required to spend a great deal of time outside my normal job description studying, planning etc. It is that that he feels my children impact on.
The actually role that I am paid to perform I can do with my eye's closed, that is documented it's all the extra "stuff" that he feels would make a difference to the organisation that frankly I am not prepared to do because it's a poorly paid job with bugger all prospects.
Given that I exceed targets, achieve what I am asked to achieve for the money that they pay me I feel I am fulfilling my part of the bargain.
What I suspect he would like is a 22 year old who will dedicate their every waking hour to the organisation. As he interviewed and recruited me for the role i feel it's a bit late for that.
I don't know what else to say really.

On the face of it, it sounds as if your manager is behaving very unreasonably. I would like to think that HR are able to mediate and achieve a resolution for you.

As for what I want to gain, I want him sacked so he cannot do this to anyone else, if the company does that then the matter will end there and then. I'm not the first person this has happened to, he was warned by HR, it's been spelt out to him and he's chosen to ignore.

you are unlikely to achieve that through the courts though tbh.

Your case will be against the company, and if the courts award in your favour it will be damages, not the sacking of the individual. Whether he is sacked will come down to the company and whether they feel he is a liability after that, but ime most of these types of cases settle out of court anyway..

It doesn't sound like it's worth the emotional stress does it ? Nevermind the costs.

Honestly? Having been a support/advisor in 3 cases of which two were discrimination cases and seeing how hard it is to make a successful case and how much it costs I would probably cut my losses and look for another job if it was me.

I should point out that both the discrimination cases had better evidence (IMHO) than your case but it was still a gamble going to tribunal according to their employment lawyers. Both settled but got good pay outs due to length of service and because they were maternity-related (although pre EA 2010 so were sex discrimination claims). Both women had to leave and sign compromise agreements plus they incurred over £4,000 in legal fees each during the process and that excludes the amount paid by the employer for compromise agreements.

None of the "purportraitors" (for want of a better word) in the discrimination cases was sacked - although one was suspended for a time. If you want revenge or retribution of that ilk you are very unlikely to get it for reasons wannaBe describes.

As I said previously, either follow through the process (which is the grievance process, appeal then tribunal), request mediation or leave. You can still stay in your role and follow the process through although the pay outs for sex discrimination using Vento bands is a maximum of £30,000 and from what you've said I doubt you'd even qualify for the middle band and the lower band is currently capped at £6,000 - assuming you can prove your case.

perpetrators

I that that was a clever word to describe the person who was purported to discriminate

thought that