ADJ-00020813

Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

Customer Assistant

Supermarket store

Representatives

Amanda Kane

 Mandate Trade Union

Paula O’Hanlon IBEC

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-00027416-001

01/04/2019

This case related to allegation of bullying by a member of the Employers management team towards the employee. The Complainant submitted that the Employer failed to follow proper procedures.

The Incidents occurred in March and April 2018. The employee was on sick leave from mid-April 2018 and continued to be on sick leave on the dates of the hearings.

This matter was part heard by way of remote hearing pursuant to the Civil Law and Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2020 and SI 359/20206, which designates the WRC as a body empowered to hold remote hearings.

On 30 March 2018 the employee approached her line manager requesting time off to attend a family wedding. The manager became very angry and started shouting and swearing at her stating that she was "sick of rosters and changing days for staff". The employee explained that the manager picked up a book and threw it towards her hitting the wall behind her. After a while the line manager calmed down and asked the employee to bring in her invitation and she would look at it.

Several days later, the employee went to speak to the line manager in the canteen. Her line manager was on her lunch break. She became extremely aggressive and spoke in an unacceptable and inappropriate manner towards the employee. She slapped the table and screamed at the employee. She kicked a chair and began shouting and swearing at the employee.

The employee sought assistance from the duty manager.  The duty manager set up a meeting between the employee and her line manager. The employee felt very intimidated at the meeting. She felt she was ambushed. She wanted to meet the duty manager on his own but instead he invited the line manager into the room with him.

The line manager admitted what happened in the canteen. The duty manager announced that no notes were to be taken and recommended that the line manager apologise to the employee and that the employee accept the apology and that was to be the end of the matter.  The employee could not accept this. The line manager stormed out of the meeting.

The employee had a meeting with the store personnel manager on 10 April 2018. No notes were taken at this meeting.

The employee had to go to great lengths to bring her grievance arising from the way she was treated in this matter. She wanted to involve her union official. She was advised she could only have a work colleague.

The employee felt she had to request that her grievance be dealt with outside of the store in which she worked. She did not feel that management in the store could be trusted to ensure fairness.

The employee went on sick leave on 19 April 2018.

The grievance hearing took place on 3 August 2018. The employee raised concerns in relation to how her grievance was being handled in the amount of time it had taken to have her grievance hearing convened. She informed the meeting that she felt very let down by the Company and what had taken place after the incidents with her line manager.

The store personnel manager interviewed the duty manager, customer assistant, and the line manager as part of the grievance investigation.

An outcome meeting took place on 10 August 2018. The employee’s union representative expressed concerns with the lack of investigation of the facts and felt that the store personnel manager was protecting the line manager.

The store personnel manager issued her findings on 4 September 2018. She found the incident did happen and that the line manager's behaviour was inappropriate towards the employee.

The employee was not happy that the Company failed to address its own feelings towards her and correctly deal with her grievance.  She appealed the outcome decision on the 7 September 2018.

An appeal hearing took place on 12 October 2018. The hearing was adjourned to allow the Appeals Manager to speak to witnesses. The meetings took place on 22 February 2019 and 11 March 2019. The outcome of the appeal issued on 19 March 2019.

The initial grievance outcome was upheld with the recommendation that the employee attend a welfare meeting with the store manager to see how a return to work could be facilitated.

The employee attended the Company doctor on 4 April 2019. The doctor found that the employee was out sick with persistent anxiety and stress attributed to a work-related difficulty. The doctor recommended that the employee and her line manager not work alongside each other.  The doctor further recommended the employee receive counselling support and a meeting to allow residual issues to be addressed.

On 20 May 2019 a welfare meeting took place with the personnel manager from a different store and the employee. It is recommended that face-to-face counselling be offered to the employee. This never took place. The only counselling that did take place was over the phone counselling which the employee found unhelpful and frustrating.

The company explained that the background to the complaint was that the employees line manager had changed and there was a change to the timeframe for notification of rosters. It went from one weeks’ notice to four weeks’ notice.

Any time off needed to be requested with as much in advance as possible. Once the rosters had issued, any workers wishing to swap shifts needed to swap with a trained colleague.

The line manager that the employee had an incident with was not her line manager who had responsibility for rosters.  The employee had been notified of her new line manager. 

The store personnel manager was approached by the employee regarding the incident.  She advised her of her options under the grievance procedure (informal v formal).

The employee raised a grievance concerning her encounter with her line manager and a subsequent informal meeting that had taken place.

The store personnel manager was appointed to investigate the employee’s grievance.  This took place in as expeditious manner as was possible taking into account the worker was out on sick leave from early in the process.

The facts of this case are mainly in the agreement between the parties.

I have no doubt that the employee found the incidents which occurred extremely distressing.

The company has a grievance procedure which is described as providing a "fair and logical way of solving problems". It is described as a quick process and it is in both parties’ interest to resolve any differences or situations as soon as possible.  The company also has the dignity at work policy.

It appears that the company duty manager tried to resolve matters informally between the employee and her line manager. This was not acceptable to the worker. She felt that the company took the side of her line manager and that she was stalled at every stage of the grievance procedure.

I accept there were delays in the procedure, but I have no reason to believe that personnel manager acted in any way improperly.

I am conscious that the employee has been out of work on sick leave from the middle of April 2018.  That added to the delays in delaying with the grievance. 

At the WRC hearing on 1 April 2021, the employee was notified that her line manager had left the company's employment.

I recommend that the employee return to work on a phased basis once she is medically fit to do so.

I recommend that the company provide the employee with seven one-hour sessions of counselling which may have to be over the phone due to Covid restrictions, but preferably on face-to-face basis to assist her to prepare to return to work.

Bullying. Delay by Employer in dealing with complaints.