RECOMMENDATION
Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00023462
Parties:
| Complainant | Respondent |
Anonymised Parties | Supervisor | Public Sector Body |
Representatives | Jay Power SIPTU | Human Resources Manager |
Complaint(s):
Act | Complaint/Dispute Reference No. | Date of Receipt |
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969 | CA-00029961-001 | 30/07/2019 |
Date of Adjudication Hearing: 18/10/2019
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Brian Dalton
Procedure:
In accordance with Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015 and Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Acts 1969 following the referral of the complaint(s)/dispute(s) to me by the Director General, I inquired into the complaint(s)/dispute(s) and gave the parties an opportunity to be heard by me and to present to me any evidence relevant to the complaint(s)/dispute(s).
Background:
The issue in contention concerns the non- payment of a responsibility allowance to the complainant for carrying out additional duties over and above the complainant’s grade responsibilities. These additional duties arose when the complainant’s immediate supervisor left the department until the position was filled- a period of 30 months. |
Summary of Complainant’s Case:
When the claimant’s superior left the area and over a period of time as result of requests from other areas; he began to carry out some of the duties of his old supervisor. His superior was called the attendance officer and many of his responsibilities weren’t assigned to anyone. A vacuum existed for nearly 30 months and the complainant was asked more and more to take on these duties and tasks based on requests from other work areas. The complainant lists a number of duties such as attendance management; cost centre co-ordination with accounts, pension calculations, management of wage calculations, updating HR records. He also states that he was responsible for ensuring: · All disciplinary matters are dealt with in the strictest confidence · Co-ordinating with all departments and sections such as HR/The Law Department and H & S re staffing issues · Facilitating the movement of staff within the area. He claims that an acting up allowance of 6 hours per week at double time should have been applied as an allowance for the period. |
Summary of Respondent’s Case:
The respondent stated that the Attendance responsibilities were essentially administrative in nature and were already detailed in the claimant’s existing job duties. However, the principal difference related to the overall managerial responsibility of the vacant role in contrast to the administrative duties carried out by the complainant. These managerial duties did cover the management of disciplinary matters, managing staff issues, facilitating movement of staff. If the complainant carried out such duties, he did not do so in any substantial way as required by the higher supervisory grade role. In addition, the higher-grade role was responsible for more demanding duties such as fleet training, developing and rolling out new protocols such as the vehicle damage protocol, developing the current systems in use for monitoring attendance, accident investigation and also being the designated Human Resources representative. The two roles even allowing for the additional administrative duties were fundamentally different. The complainant was never appointed into the higher role. Crucially the claimant’s existing job responsibilities allows for those tasks that he claims are higher level duties attracting a payment; his job grade also provides that assistance is given to the supervisory role. On these grounds there is no merit to the claim. |
Findings and Conclusions:
Having examined both the higher level role and the incumbent’s role responsibilities based on the job descriptions, it would appear based on the written submissions and oral submissions that the claimant was flexible, carried out some additional tasks that were previously done by his superior; however, this was not the same as formally acting up for the vacant position and carrying out the full range of responsibilities. The claimant’s grade equivalent information booklet detailing the job duties does provide for support to more senior staff. There are unique facts relating to this claim that are stand alone and should be considered, such as the time to actually fill the vacancy permanently. This went on for about 30 months. I recommend that a once off payment is made without any precedent being established having regard to the unique requirements arising from the delay to fill the post and indeed willing co-operation of the complainant to complete new tasks relating to cost pools, pension calculations and attendance related matters. I recommend a total payment of €3750 to be made to the complainant. This payment solely relates to the unique facts of this particular case.
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Decision:
Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Acts, 1969 requires that I make a recommendation in relation to the dispute.
I recommend that the complainant receives a once off payment of €3750 for the reasons as detailed solely based on the unique facts of this case. |
Dated: 18th December 2019
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Brian Dalton
Key Words:
Responsibility Allowance; Delay to fill role; Fairness |