Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Complainant

A Representative Organisation

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

CA-00014828-001

26/09/2017

The respondent organisation underwent a very major re-structuring following a merger with other similar organisations.

The complainant says that on conclusion of this process his status was diminished.

The complainant says that the status of his role has been diminished in a number of ways following the merger of his former, and the new organisation.

He had a specific role for financial management which has been removed and also some of his operational role has been diminished. He also had a role in the senior management team of his former organisation.

The nomenclature used in the new organisation has also had an adverse impact on his status, and he is now in a grade which has a substantially higher number of colleagues than in his former organisation.

This is of concern particularly in relation the external perception of his changed status and role.

He feels that his position and interests were not sufficiently strongly advocated in the merger discussions by his representative.

The complainant’s issues have been the subject of workplace level attempts at resolution, but these had not been successful.

He is particularly aggrieved that a possible new role which he thought would be suitable for him was ignored, but in due course when it emanated from a different source it was filled on the basis of a public competition, when he felt he should have been assimilated into it.

He now feels that he has been isolated within the organisation and is working within a hostile environment and is also at a significant financial disparity with a particular comparator.

The respondent points out that the complainant’s original employer represented a very small component of the new organisation. (Details were given in evidence of turnover, size and assets).

It was not true to say that the complainant’s position was affected by any lack of strong advocacy on the part of his representative, and he did indeed make those arguments which the complainant asserts were not made. The fact is that the structure thus resulting from that position would not have been acceptable to the new organisation for reasons of governance and control.

The case alleged by the complainant not to have been made was in fact well put. It simply was not acceptable.

Similarly, the decisions made in relation to the filling of the post which the complainant had proposed were corporate decisions based on best practice. Indeed, following public competition a number of internal candidates were successful.

The complainant’s misgivings about both his salary and the hostile environment are unfounded and the respondent is willing to address these, and also to examine the possibility of new roles for the complainant, but within the existing grading structure directly with the complainant.

This complaint arises under the Industrial Relations Act. The requirements of anonymity require only very generalised description of the issues and events in the complaint. However, all oral and written submissions of the parties have been fully considered on their merits.

The parameters of the complaint are clear from the submissions.

The complainant says that his status has been diminished following the merger, and, in what seems to be at least as important consideration to the complainant, this was attributable to some lack of effort on the part of his representative in the merger talks. (Indeed, he alleged that this was due to malice, and antipathy for which no scintilla of evidence was offered).

As it happens, both these points are answered in the same way by the respondent.

That is that the complainant has failed to take account of the scale of the new enterprise and the fact that, as his former workplace was a relatively small component of the new entity his position could not be replicated in its entirety.

One of his complaints of diminution of role related to the number of colleagues with whom he now shared a grade, but of course this is an inevitable outcome of the creation of the larger entity. Another was his previous role at executive board level.

In respect of a number of key areas of fact the complainant was shown to be harbouring unfounded theories about the reasons for a number of outcomes and which fell apart on contact with the respondent’s submissions relating to the governance needs of the new entity and other responses.

None of this is to underestimate the impact of change on the scale involved in this case on those working within it and it is unlikely that the complainant is the only person struggling to come to terms with it.

The complainant is a person of ability and experience in his professional work, although in presenting his own case he has demonstrated a regrettable (if human) lack of insight and objectivity. He has tended to excessively personalise the issues and failed to engage with the scale of the changes.

Nonetheless, his preferred solution of the creation of a higher-level position for him alone that would restore the perceived diminution in his status is quite unrealistic, as he must surely know.

The respondent has expressed a willingness to enter into a dialogue which might explore alternative roles for the complainant within the current structure.

This represents the best way forward for the parties.

In the meantime, the complainant can move on but to do so must apply his energies to coming to terms with and embracing the reality of the changed position and his role in the new entity, which can be a very positive one. It is clear that some of his sense of grievance about how things developed as they did is misplaced.

I do not uphold complaint CA-14828-001 but recommend that the parties enter into a process of discussion and exploration as to how the skills and experience of the complainant might best be developed and put to the service of the new entity.