LCR22038

The Worker has been employed as a Department Manager by the Company in a number of its stores in the Cork area since 2 March 2007. In March 2018, he was transferred to the Company’s store in Carrigaline. It appears that the Worker did not have a happy working relationship with his Store Manager in his new location. He was absent on certified sick leave from 11 June 2018 until 12 July 2018. On 6 July 2018 he initiated a formal complaint of bullying against the Store Manager.

It appears that this complaint was not progressed by the Area Manager at the time because the Store Manager was absent from the workplace for an extended period in the latter half of 2018. She returned to the store on 9 October 2018. The Worker’s circumstances deteriorated again immediately following the Store Manager’s return to work. Consequently, the Worker pressed the Area Manager to conclude his investigation into his original complaint of bullying against the Store Manager.

The Area Manager met with the Worker on 24 November 2018 and informed him that he had found no evidence that the Store Manager had bullied or harassed him contrary to the Company’s Policy on Dignity and Respect in the Workplace. The Area Manager then proceeded to invite the Store Manager to join him and the Worker at the meeting convened to communicate to the Worker the outcome of his bullying complaint against the Store Manager. This caused the Worker some degree of discomfort.

The Worker emailed the Area Manager on 29 November 2019 expressing his dissatisfaction with the outcome of the latter’s investigation and the manner in which the meeting of 24 November 2018 had been conducted. The Worker also sought information about how he could move the process to ‘the next stage’. At a subsequent meeting on 7 December 2018, the Area Manager informed the Worker that the Company’s dignity at work policy did not provide for an appeal stage.

In or around February 2019, the Worker instructed his solicitor to refer a number of complaints under employment rights legislation and a dispute pursuant to section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969 to the Workplace Relations Commission. Shortly thereafter, the Complainant was notified by his Area Manager that he was to be transferred to another of its stores.

The Worker’s Solicitor made what he describes as a protected disclosure on behalf of the Worker by letter dated 7 March 2019. No reply has been received by the Solicitor to date to this letter.

Recommendation

It is not the Court’s function, in a case such as the present one, to attempt to re-open an investigation into an allegation of bullying and harassment. However, it behoves the Court to observe that the manner in which the Company’s Area Manager chose to inform the Worker of the outcome of his investigation into the Worker’s complaint under the Company’s Policy on Dignity and Respect in the Workplace was far from satisfactory. This was done at a face to face meeting between the Area Manager and the Worker without any prior notice of the meeting or its purpose having been given to the Worker. Furthermore, it was – in the Court’s view – highly inappropriate for the Area Manager to invite the Store Manager to sit in at that meeting.

The Court also finds that the Company’s procedures fall short of best practice in so far as they do not provide for an appeal of the outcome of an investigation into allegations of bullying and harassment. Finally, it is regrettable that the Company has not seen fit to reply to the letter sent by the Complainant’s solicitor to it on 7 March 2019.

Having regard to all of the foregoing, the Court recommends that the Company pay compensation of €3,000.00 to the Worker.

The Court so recommends.

Signed on behalf of the Labour Court



Alan Haugh
TH______________________
8 July 2019Deputy Chairman



NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Recommendation should be addressed to Therese Hickey, Court Secretary.