Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

An Operations Manager

A Health Company

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994

CA-00031550-001

14/10/2019

The complainant is employed as an Operations Manager with the respondent company. She is employed with the company since July 2013. The complainant states that as part of her contract, she benefitted from maternity top-up of €250 weekly from the employer for 26 weeks during her maternity leave in 2018. However when she returned to work following her maternity leave in May 2019 and advised her manager that she was pregnant, she was informed that the company had a change of policy and she was requested to sign a document stating that should she terminate her employment with the company prior to 12 months upon the end of her maternity leave, she will have to return all monies received. The complainant stated that this new policy was published in January 2019 during which time the complainant was still on her first maternity leave. She subsequently found out that none of the staff were informed about the change to the policy and that the company newsletter pointing out this change was only circulated in October 2019. The complainant asserts that her employer never informed her of any changes to this new maternity leave policy with the new condition. The complainant states that she tried to resolve this issue internally but was informed that as part of her contract, she is responsible for informing herself of any changes to any of the respondent’s policies. However, the complainant states that during her maternity leave, the respondent ceased the complainant’s access to e-mails, company drives or access to published policies, thereby leaving the complainant with no possible way of informing herself of any changes to any policies. The complainant states that there is a clear breach of the section 7 of the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994 and submitted that the matter has caused great distress and anxiety to her.

Representatives of the respondent company attended the hearing. They stated that a new policy was published by the company in January 2019 containing updates to the initial policy. They accepted that there was some miscommunication in relation to informing the complainant of the change to its policy relating to maternity benefits in the required timeframe and apologised to the complainant for the distress caused.

Pursuant to the Terms of Employment (Information) Act, 1994, an employer is required to notify the employee of any changes of the particulars of the employee’s terms of employment within 1 month of the change taking effect.

Having carefully considered the within complaint and given the testimony of the representatives of the respondent at the hearing where they accepted that there was miscommunication in informing the complainant of the change in respect of its policy relating to maternity benefit, I find that the respondent is in breach of Section 7 of the above Act. Accordingly, I award compensation to the complainant of four weeks gross pay in the amount of €3500 for said breach.

This complaint is well-founded. The respondent is in breach of section 7 of the Act. Accordingly, I award compensation to the complainant of four weeks gross pay in the amount of €3500.

Terms and conditions of employment