Ageism - tribunal or take the cash?

[ItsnotaHenryMoore]

My friend recently started a sales job but after a day and a half of training, was told to leave with immediate effect, and escorted from the building. Like a criminal. She was told they felt she was over experienced and would become bored and disruptive. My friend had expressed a few concerns before starting that a number of comments had been made about her age by HR and others - how they don't recruit people as old as her etc...all the other sales people were in their 20's. She is mid 50's.

She was mortified but having thought about it, became angry and contacted a no win no fee solicitor. He contacted ACAS, the company have now offered £2k, but she must accept within a week otherwise that will be withdrawn and she can go to a tribunal. They are saying they have 4 witnesses that she behaved inappropriately - following men into the toilets - utter crap. They have insisted their HR person absolutely didn't mention anything about her age. Also rubbish.

The solicitor has warned her that although she could be awarded a much larger sum of money, it could take up to 2 years, might be reported in the local paper. Would be v stressful etc. Sounds like they will fight dirty and I really worry about the emotional impact on her.

Has anyone got any advice? Her immediate feeling is to take the offer but they behaved appallingly and it feels they are definitely trying to deflect from the ageist comments and attitudes.

I have suggested she hold out for a better offer. She could really do with the money.

But neither of us have any experience. Has anyone any wisdom as to the best way forward?

Indeed but her losses are minimal given her short period of employment and fact she quickly got a new job. Also the fact that it was a one off in a very short term job will mean her damages for hurt to feelings will be ranked low.

so as I said, even if she is able to prove discrimination (which is difficult and expensive) she is unlikely to be awarded much. Best option would be to negotiate a slightly higher settlement.

And don’t forget that the employer would have incurred expense in her recruitment

and yet somehow now the logic is that her age is a problem?

as i say - did she age very significantly between accepting the job offer to day 1?

Well, quite evidently she didn't age but the person who took her on was not the same person who sacked her.

The HR woman who recruited her had made several comments about her advancing years during the hiring process and it made my friend uncomfortable even though she was very pleasant eg saying they never employed people of her age but my friend's enthusiasm offset her advancing age. The HR woman said someone else in their mid 40's was starting, 'another oldie, like you'.

If I were guessing, it would seem that someone else more senior disagreed with the hiring manager's decision. After all the hiring manager knew nothing about the dismissal till after it happened - my friend told her.

This is not me - I work for a charity where many of my colleagues are much younger. I am 20 years older than my line manager and have colleagues younger than my children but I haven't never been made to feel anything other than valued.

Yawn. If you think a chance to reach settlement happens once and once only, you know about as much about the 'tribunal process' as I know about astropaleology.

Goodbye now, and don't forget to complete your HR qualification on the way out.

Well op, suggestions for your friend range from 'take the £2k offered' to 'tell them £10k' - what will she do?

“Yawn”

you sound like a grumpy teenager prone to fantasising and spouting on about issues they really have no clue about.

All the best in getting off the “struck off” list

I don't know, she was all for taking the money but I think it would be worth trying to push for a bit more. It's been interesting to hear a range of views. Ultimately it's down to what she feels comfortable and safe with. I think even getting to this stage has made her feel more powerful.

Does she have any evidence for any of this? The HR person allegedly had no part in her dismissal anyway. So she would need some solid evidence that her age was the reason her employment was terminated. Does she have that?

As I said, it is upsetting to be discriminated against but even if she can successfully prove it, she will be awarded a few thousand pounds. So best to settle.

You’d be surprised how stupid some managers are.

DBro was made “redundant” so his boss could bring his girlfriend across from another agency. DBro did a subject access request as part of his grievance, and uncovered emails between his director and HR, dated six months after he left, saying “I’m not paying that little fucker anything. Say he was fired for incompetence, I’ll change his last few appraisals to say he was on a PIP”.

This was a multinational advertising agency, and DBro was a departmental head, so the guy saying this in writing was not some inexperienced idiot (he got about £20k out of them in the end).

@Hotandbothereds
@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Because a lot of employers ask for references from your previous employment or employers over the last 5 years for example - you can't always choose.

Lol. Who said anything about /« settlement being reached only once? ». No one except you. Who said a load of crap about the employer being « 100% fucked » and that op should go to a « tribunal « - again you.

you’re definitely not an employment lawyer. It’s a weird thing to fantasise about but there you go…

She worked there for two days and now she has a new job, she quite simply leaves it off her cv - I’ve done similar myself, for a short period it’s very simple to exclude a job from a CV.

The OP says her friend had been out of work for several years before landing this job. How is any future employer going to know about this job which she had for 1.5 days? All she has to do is say 'unemployed' or 'career break' or whatever she would otherwise say, and give the end point as the day before she started the other new job mentioned.

She hadn't been out of work for a few years..a few months. But long enough to really want a full time job!

But spoke to her today. Loving the first day of her new job and accepted the initial offer today - didn't want any more negativity and uncertainty. And glad she challenged them.

Thanks for all the advice.

I've got several years experience as an employment lawyer running tribunal claims and I'm not sure I'd agree with this advice. I'm not sure where the £35-£40k per tribunal figure comes from. I worked for an international commercial firm and for clients with regular tribunals we would charge nowhere near that for a standard tribunal (think fixed fees of under £10k for all but unusually complex cases). I'd be really surprised if a firm could get away with charging that much for a standard case.

I also don't think a £2k offer means they necessarily think there was is any merit in the claim. At that point settlement could just be commercial - its cheaper to pay settlement than solicitor's fees and the cost to the company of its employees having to take time out of their day jobs as witnesses.

I also have frequently seen employment tribunal cases reported in local press, particularly where discrimination or whistleblowing are involved. Depends how interesting the case is, who the employer is, and what other news there is that day but its not a risk you can discount. It does go both ways though - its not really in either party's interests to have the case in the press in general.

Also worth pointing out that as she had less than 2 years service, they don't need a fair reason or process for dismissing her. As long as it isn't discriminatory or whistleblowing, they can dismiss her for whatever they like at that point. So if she was doing something they didn't like, they could just dismiss her without telling her that or following a fair process.

I would advise any of my friends not to go to tribunal if they could get a settlement. It is a very stressful process, and takes a long time to resolve. There's also no guarantee of the end result. It does sound like your friend probably was discriminated against, but personally I would think unless she really wants to go on point of principle and is happy to accept the stress and time involved in that, she would be better served by taking a settlement and moving on with her life, particuarly if she has another job now. I do reckon she could probably get more than £2k though - that's a pretty low offer. As mentioned above the company are likely to have legal fees and the cost of company time of a tribunal to think about, even before you get to the risk of compensation being awarded against him. Her solicitor should be able to advise her what a good offer will be - that depends on her loss of earnings, injury to feelings (did she suffer any mental illness etc as a result of her treatment?) and how strong her case is. We don't have enough information to judge that. However as I said £2k is a low offer so I would definitely be minded to push for more, in consultation with her solicitor.

Previous suggestion of a subject access request is also a good one. Even if they don't find anything, these are a complete time consuming headache for employers and will increase the likelihood of them wanting to settle so they don't need to deal with it. And you never know what you might find that might bump the settlement figure up! Nothing to lose for the employee in firing one in.

Just saw she accepted the offer sorry. Hope she is able to put it behind her and enjoy the new job!

She's very happy so far, funnily enough, one of the new starters at her new place is the 'other oldie' that was mentioned upthread.