Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

Accounts Assistant

Supermarket

Representatives

none 

 none

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-00039477-001

31/08/2020

The Complainant has initiated a complaint against her Employer pursuant to workplace relations complaint form dated the 31st of August 2020.  In her form the Complainant has indicated that she disputes disciplinary sanctions imposed on her up to and including dismissal.

At the outset, it should be noted that the Complainant herein had issued a workplace relations Complaint Form on the 6th of February 2020. This was issued against a proposed Respondent by the name of “Supervalu” and is referenced in ADJ File no. 26897. This matter came on for hearing on the 27th of August 2020. The Complainant acknowledged that the proposed Respondent was not her Employer and went on to issue a new workplace relations complaint form on the 31st of August 2020 which includes the within complaint. In agreement with the Complainant it was agreed that ADJ 26897 would be withdrawn.

The Respondent has fully resisted the Complainant’s case. Three witnesses gave evidence in the course of the hearing.

I have carefully considered the evidence adduced in the course of this hearing. The Complainant was employed with the Respondent company for about five  weeks from the 21st  day of December 2019 to the 17th  day of January 2020.

The Complainant was brought in as a cash office assistant. In this capacity, the Complainant understood that at the very least she would be assisting and that her work would be subject to review as a subordinate employee. The Complainant says that she was expected by this new employer to hit the ground running and that she was under-trained and under-prepared for the level of work required. The Complainant says that she operated out of the small cash office in the supermarket premises. She was reporting to A and when A was not present she would report to D.  The Complainant said that no one aspect of the duties was overly difficult, it was just too much  in circumstances where she had not settled in and had not been given an opportunity to create her own routine. The Complainant did say that she was concerned about lodging large amounts of cash into the ATM machine which was one of her tasks.

The Complainant said that A was very impatient with her. There was constant eye-rolling and verbal diminishment if the Complainant did something wrong. For example, a key got broken in the safe door and A couldn’t stop commenting on it – that it had never happened before, what did you do etc. There was always blame being put over on the Complainant. The nett effect of this was apprehension in approaching A for assistance and guidance. A was, as the Complainant perceived it, extremely dismissive of her. At least twice in her evidence before me, the Complainant said that A made her feel stupid.

The Complainant described feeling intimidated by A which sometimes resulted in silly mistakes on the part of the Complainant which compounded the annoyance and the worry. A would ask the Complainant to take notes of the instructions she was giving her, and then criticise her for having messy and illegible notes. The Complainant says that A spoke so fast it was hard to get everything down. A criticised her writing saying it was messy when all the Complainant was trying to do was to catch everything she was saying. A did not seem to understand that things newly learnt take a little longer and speed will come with familiarity. She constantly complained about how slow the Complainant was.

The Complainant says that she believed that the problems were simply teething problems inherent in a new job where training was patchy. She never felt as hassled when D was in the office. She (D) was just a much more easy-going person. The Complainant never went above A to her line Manager (E) as she felt it was early days and she needed to settle in. In addition, it is noted that this was the Christmas period and so really busy.

There were other issues including the long hours with no formal breaks. The Complainant could sense that A was not happy with her performance and believed she had certainly talked to E about her in a negative way. To her surprise E took her aside and told her it was not working out and she was going to be let go. The Complainant hadn’t even been there 13 weeks so there was no notice to be had. The Complainant had to leave the workplace then and there. The Complainant says that her abrupt dismissal was conducted by E in a common area and in front of at least one other Employee and was very humiliating. The Complainant described the damage to her self-confidence.

The Complainant is clear that there was no lead up to this Dismissal. Mr. E had not addressed her performance and nor had the owner of the business, Mr. C. The Complainant had had no warning regarding poor performance and there certainly no disciplinary issues. The Complainant was not offered any assistance with parts of the job that she may have been finding difficult. There was, in fact, no discussion other than being told it was not working out. In evidence. the Complainant said that she believed she was bullied by A though it is not clear to me that the Complainant ever made such an allegation before the hearing date.

In the course of evidence, it became clear that the complainant was aggrieved at the manner and fact of her dismissal and I note that the Industrial Relations Acts permits an employee with less than one year of continuous service to take a claim for unfair dismissal.

Mr C gave evidence on behalf of the Respondent. He explained that he and his wife owned and operated the supermarket and had started it from scratch. His wife, he said, had worked in the cash office and the practices in there mainly originated from what she had implemented. Mr. C stated that A had started in the cash office and worked her way up the ladder. She had been trained up alongside another employee and then had been allowed to tackle the work under the watchful eye of her line Manager. The same procedure was adopted for the Complainant. It is a method which has worked well in the past said Mr. C.

Mr. C stated that as the owner he doesn’t get too involved in the training up any more but does recall talking to the Complainant who told him she was still finding it a bit challenging. This struck a note with Mr. C who felt she should have been on top of it by then. Some three weeks after the Complainant’s arrival, Mr C discussed the position (and the Complainant in the position) with E and between them they agreed that the position wasn’t for her. They decided that it was not in anyone’s interest to continue putting time into training her up. I was not provided with any rationale as to how this decision was reached and what efforts were made to seek to retain the Complainant.

The Complainant asked to meet with Mr. C within a few days of her termination and he noted that she was very upset at the meeting. She stated that she had felt mis-treated. She said that she had not been given quality training and that the system of training was flawed. The Complainant believed she had not been given adequate time to settle in. No issue had been raised as to her performance not was any time allowed to see if a solution to any issues could be found.

Mr. C says he took these issues on board and even talked to both A and E about them. However, they believed that their systems functioned efficiently and the complainant had simply not grasped them. On foot of this discussion Mr. C went back to the Complainant and told her that the role just wasn’t for her and that he had no other openings at that time. Mr.C did put in a word for her with a recruitment agency. On balance, Mr. C is satisfied that E had managed the situation correctly. The Employment was just not a right fit for this Employee. He said that the Complainant’s replacement picked up the job within a few weeks.

E gave evidence on behalf of the Respondent. He said there was never any allegation of bullying made though he accepts that the Complainant had flagged there was an issue with the training on one of the few occasions he had talked to her before he dismissed her. E does not seem to have taken this disclosure on board in the way I would expect a reasonably applied and intuitive Manager would. E conceded he was not fully au fait with the work practices of the cash office even though he was there three years. E does not seem to have engaged in any process which might allow the Complainant become better at her job. Perhaps this was because he didn’t understand her job himself.

A gave evidence and stated that it was hard to hear herself being described in the way that the complainant had described her. A said that the Complainant had been a very nice lady who just hadn’t readily picked up the requirements of the job. It “just wasn’t sticking” was how she described it in her evidence. It appeared to her that she prepared and took notes but just wasn’t getting the sequencing right. There is a systematic way of dealing with the cash office that works well and within the time constraints. E pointed out that the Complainant never said anything to her or about her training in the course of the employment. She was very upset at allegations of bullying being made.

On balance I am satisfied that this was a terrible and hurtful experience for the Complainant. The combined lack of insight demonstrated by MrC, MrE and MsA was evident in the course of this hearing. The Complainant was dismissed by a process of acclaim and not by any reasonable or fair process which might have given her the chance to become better and faster or at least give her a chance to articulate where the problem lay. I fully understand why a person in the job less than a month might be reluctant to make a complaint about her line manager as she grapples with trying to understand her role in the face of, what she perceived to be, inadequate and hostile training. I confirm that I accept the Complainant’s version of events as regards her treatment by Ms.A. Mr.C and Mr. E stood idly by and simply summarily terminated the employment rather than invest any time and effort in assisting this lady.

In the circumstances, I am finding that the termination of the Complainant’s employment was wholly unfair and unreasonable.

In awarding quantum, I am mindful of the short duration of this employment and the efforts made to gain employment.

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

CA-00039477-001

Having already articulated my opinion on the merits of the within dispute, I am recommending that the Respondent pay to the Complainant the sum of €1,500.00 within four weeks of the date of this decision.