ADJUDICATION OFFICER RECOMMENDATION
Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00019654
Parties:
| Complainant | Respondent |
Anonymised Parties | An IT Systems Support Officer | A Hospital |
Representatives |
|
Complaint:
Act | Complaint/Dispute Reference No. | Date of Receipt |
CA-00026074-001 |
Date of Adjudication Hearing:
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer:
Procedure:
Between February 6th and June 10th 2019, this complainant submitted six complaints to the WRC under various pieces of legislation. In accordance with Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015, Section 79 of the Employment Equality Acts 1998 – 2015 and Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Acts 1969, these complaints and disputes were assigned to me by the Director General. From a scheduling perspective, the complainant agreed that all six complaints could be dealt with together, but she requested that her complaints under the Employment Equality Acts be considered first. On August 14th 2019, I heard submissions from the complainant and the respondent in relation to the complaints of discrimination. The grievances under the Industrial Relations Act were considered on September 23rd 2019.
On the forms she submitted to the WRC, the complainant did not indicate that she would be represented at the hearing of her complaints. On one form, she said that it is very difficult for her to write about her complaint without getting distracted. On another, she referred to the fact that in 2015, she was absent from work due to stress and in 2019, she was absent again because of stress. She said that she has a difficulty hearing, particularly when people talk over her.
Considering these challenges, and, because of the complexity and number of complaints, in advance of the first hearing, I instructed the case officer to write to the complainant to encourage her to bring someone with her who has experience of attending hearings at the WRC, or who is familiar with industrial relations and employment law. In his letter, the case officer explained to the complainant that the hearings will involve her being cross-examined by the IBEC executive representing the hospital, and she will have the opportunity to cross-examine their witnesses. The complainant was advised that she could be accompanied by a relative or a friend, or both; however, to help the process to run as smoothly as possible, and to give her the best chance to make her case effectively, she was advised to be represented by a trade union official, a solicitor or someone from her local Citizens Information Centre.
On August 14th 2019, the complainant attended the hearing without representation. At the opening of proceedings, I asked her to re-consider her decision, but she said that she didn’t want to be represented because it would take too long to explain her case to someone. I am satisfied that, while she could have been represented at the hearing, the complainant chose not to be. I regret her decision in this regard because she was disorganised and there was no chronological order in the way she presented her complaints.
September 23rd 2019 was the second of two days of hearings at which I enquired into the six complaints submitted by the complainant. The hospital’s Human Resources Manager and the complainant’s line manager, who is the Manager of the Clinical Activity Reporting Unit attended and gave evidence. They were represented by Ms Aisling McDevitt of IBEC. Ms Sinéad O’Connor from the WRC Secretariat attended the hearing to ensure that the proceedings were manageable for the complainant.
The subject of this recommendation is the complainant’s first complaint, submitted on February 6th 2019. At the hearing, the complainant informed me that she was absent due to illness since the middle of January 2019 and, on May 20th, she was compulsorily retired because of incapacity. She is entitled to an early pension on the grounds of ill health.
Background:
The complainant commenced employment in the hospital in March 2003. By the time of her retirement in May 2019, she was in a Grade V role of “Data Informatics and Reporting Officer” and she reported to the Manager of the Clinical Activity Reporting Unit (“CARU”). In her job description, her role is described as “report-writing, data extraction and statistical compiling throughout the hospital to inform business intelligence as required by the Clinical Activity Reporting Unit”. The complainant said that her job involved the maintenance of data quality, data governance and checking, the extraction of data for reports, staff training, answering telephone queries, drawing up organisation charts and attendance at project meetings and teleconferences. At the hearing, the CARU Manager said that the complainant had considerable expertise in IT systems and data management. Outline Chronology In 2014, the complainant was working in the Patient Services Department and, around the time of an IT systems upgrade, she said had several grievances related to her job. She said these grievances involved her requesting “tools to do the job that I had been assigned” and “requests for processes as to how things were done.” Following a meeting with her Department Head and the Human Resources Manager, she got a letter confirming that “improved work flows would be worked on,” but, she said that this didn’t happen. In August 2015, the complainant said that she was sent home from work. She said that she remained absent until January 2016 because of workplace stress. An advertisement was posted for a temporary Systems Officer to cover her role during her absence. The person who got the temporary job was the brother of her line manager at the time and the complainant alleged that he got the job as a result of canvassing. When she returned to work, the complainant was concerned at the access he had been given to the e-mail account for the job and to various IT systems. The complainant said that between 2014 and 2017, her post was “split and splintered by the introduction of various new posts.” She said that one job was to communicate with and to represent senior management and this was assigned to a person at a higher grade than her. The second job was to improve communications about processes and this was given to a less senior manager. The complainant said that there was no improvement in her work processes because, in March 2016, her manager told her not to contact the person in the process role. The complainant said that she submitted a formal grievance about this on three occasions, but she got no response. In April 2016, the complainant was moved to report to the manager of the Clinical Activity Unit, while still carrying out some work for the Patient Services Unit. In February 2017, the complainant said that, following a meeting between two departments, her former line manager, the Head of Patient Services, made a complaint about her. She made a counter-claim about her manager and about her working conditions, which, she claimed were very difficult. An investigation was carried out by an independent consultant, but the complainant said that her own complaints were not considered. She believes that the manager who complained about her counselled two witnesses about the evidence they gave to the investigator. In her submission she said, “the Investigation Findings were that I was found to be of a bullying behaviour, albeit unintentional.” The complainant appealed against this outcome; however, the hospital did not accept her appeal because it was submitted too late. A disciplinary investigation arising from the findings of this report resulted in the complainant being issued with a written warning on January 18th 2018. At the hearing of her grievances on September 23rd 2019, the complainant said that she did not consent to me reading the report of the independent consultant which was submitted in evidence by the hospital and I returned the document to Ms McDevitt. In July 2018, the complainant said that she was listening to the radio at work and she heard a feature about the new General Data Protection Regulations. She said that she thought that using the Regulations might be one way of getting her issues resolved. On one day, she sent 33 e-mails to the Human Resources Manager, requesting specific information and a designated reference number for each item, to assist her “to raise the issues with the Data Protection Office in relation to the fair processing of data about me.” In August, the complainant sent a 50-page submission to a consultant gynaecologist / obstetrician at the hospital by way of an appeal against the disciplinary warning of January 2018. These communications and what were referred to as “the excessive number of complaints / grievances / correspondence you have been sending to senior management since January 2018” resulted in a second disciplinary investigation. On October 18th 2018, the complainant was issued with a final written warning. Her appeal against this warning was rejected. On January 3rd 2019, the complainant refused to attend a meeting with her manager unless she had a witness present. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss an operational matter. On January 14th, she was suspended, pending an investigation into her failure to carry out a reasonable instruction. On February 6th 2019, in her complaint form in relation to this complaint, she said, “I am currently on sick leave for stress.” On August 14th, at the WRC, the complainant said that she had suffered an injury at work and she consulted a psychiatrist. At some point during her absence, she was examined by the hospital’s occupational health physician. Following a discussion by telephone with her consultant, the occupational health physician wrote a report in which he concluded that that the complainant is permanently incapable of carrying out her duties at work and he recommended that she would be permitted to retire on medical grounds. |
Summary of Complainant’s Case:
On her complaint form, the complainant said that there are about 25 unresolved complaints related to her job going back over three or four years. She claims that her right to fair procedures, as set out in the Code of Practice on Grievance and Disciplinary Procedures (Statutory Instrument 146 of 2000) has been infringed. She said that, in submitting this grievance, her objective is “in relation to the second disciplinary and towards closing off all the complaints that I have sent within the guidelines of the National Grievance Policy and the Dignity at Work Policy.” These include: § Request to be included as outlined in the job description that I have; § Request for information to do the work; § Request to be communicated with in a manner that could be understood; § Notification of issues that could be a risk or cause harm; § Notification of privacy breaches and requests to have them addressed related to job applications; § Requests for the splintering of the post to be addressed specifically in relation to instruction from Management in 2016 which cut the communication lines; § Notifications to HR that they had not addressed the grievances over several years in some cases; § Notifications related to the security breaches on the work station that I used. |
Summary of Respondent’s Case:
Response of the Hospital to the Complainant’s Grievances It is the respondent’s case that the complainant has not set out any details regarding the complaint she claims have not been dealt with. She refers broadly to “tools” and “processes” to enable her to do her job. On several occasions, the complainant referred complaints under the hospital’s Dignity at Work policy, but these were considered by the HR Department to be operational issues. For example, she sought clarification regarding the categorisation of patients from a previous manager and she was provided with a response by e-mail. The complainant considered the response not to be adequate and she submitted a complaint. She also sought to escalate an incorrect clocking record in respect of her working time. These matters were considered not appropriate to an investigation by the HR Department and they were not progressed to a formal investigation. The complainant alleges that her concerns were not considered by the investigator nominated to examine the complaint initiated against the complainant in February 2017. It is the respondent’s case that the outcome from this investigation clearly sets out findings in response to her allegations. In the summer of 2018, the complainant submitted complaints about statements made to the investigator of the 2017 complaint and various complaints about the hospital’s internal policies and operational matters. She submitted six appeals to the hospital’s General Secretary Manager, some of which related to processes that had been finalised. For the hospital, Ms McDevitt said that the way the complainant’s grievances have been dealt with was fair and reasonable. |
Findings and Conclusions:
I have considered the case made by the complainant at the hearing of these matters and I have listened carefully to what she said concerning her employment and the difficulties she said she experienced from around 2014 until she retired in May this year. She referred to about 25 unresolved complaints going back three or four years, but she did not identify any specific complaints, with the date that she submitted them and the response that she received from the HR Department. She claimed that she was not given the tools to do her job and that processes were not clear, but she did not elaborate on what these tools were or what processes were not implemented. She claims that the person who replaced her while she was out sick gained some benefit from this, but I learned at the hearing that this employee remains in the role he was in before he temporarily filled in for her. She was dissatisfied with the outcome of the investigation into a complaint about her, but she declined to permit me to read the report of this investigation and therefore, I can make no finding on this. At the hearing, the complainant appeared at times to be intentionally obtuse and confusing, and she declined to answer questions directly, preferring instead to divert and move on to another issue which she considered more relevant. I have a concern that, in a unionised environment, the complainant decided not to consult with a trade union representative to assist her with the issues she was finding difficult at work. She could have benefited from the guidance of someone more experienced than her in workplace grievances. By early 2019, it is apparent that the complainant was going in only one direction in relation to her job at the hospital. She was on a final written warning, but she was unaware or perhaps unconcerned that her behaviour was disruptive. On her return from work, it is likely that she would have been dismissed, but the HR Department intervened and an application was made to permit her to retire on the ground of ill health. This complaint was submitted in February 2019, three months before the complainant retired. At the hearing, the complainant said that she is 51 years old, so the value of an early pension is significant. It is my view that the decision to permit her to retire early is a reasonable and fair resolution to her grievances. I would encourage her to destroy the considerable volume of paperwork that she carries with her and to look for a more suitable job. |
Decision:
Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Acts, 1969 requires that I make a recommendation in relation to the dispute.
I have concluded that the grievances outlined by the complainant on her complaint form and at this hearing were resolved by the hospital’s decision to permit her to retire early in May 2019. Therefore, I recommend that no further action is taken in relation to these matters. |
Dated: September 30th 2019
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Catherine Byrne
Key Words:
Grievances |