Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

An Accounts Payable Specialist

A Payments Technology Company

Representatives

Not represented 

Patrick O'Neill, A&L Goodbody

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00045377-001

27/07/2021

The employee is an accounts payable professional.  In February 2020, she was employed by an outsourced accounts payable company and assigned to the employer’s company.  After four weeks, she was offered a permanent job as an accounts payable specialist on an annual salary of €35,000.  She was on probation from March 23rd until September 23rd 2020.  In early September, the employee’s line manager proposed extending her probation for three months until December 22nd.  The employee was unhappy with this and she asked to be “let go.”  Her employment was terminated on October 6th 2020.

The employee argues that the decision to extend her probation was unnecessary and that the termination of her employment was unfair.  She said that she wants to return to her job or to be paid compensation.

At the hearing, the employee said that the fact that she was offered a permanent position in March 2020, after working for four weeks with an outsourcing company, demonstrates that her manager was satisfied with her work.  She thinks that, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the employer was uncertain about how the business was going and that they extended her probation so that she could be dismissed later.  She said that her performance was good.

The employee complained that she was asked to work from home from April 25th 2020.  She argues that this could be a breach of her contract.  She said that issues that were unclear were resolved in communications between her and her colleagues and manager.  She said however, that sometimes there were gaps between the time she needed clarification and when the answers were provided.

Referring to the submission provided by the employer in advance of the hearing, the employee disagreed with her manager’s assertion that she had review meetings to support her to meet the standard expected of her.  She said that the purpose of the one to one meetings was for her development and not to review her performance.  She disputed the accuracy of emails submitted by her manager and she claimed that the emails were out of context.

In her own submission, the employee said that the first time issues about her performance were raised with her was on September 7th 2020.  She was informed then that her probation would be extended for three months.  On September 30th, the employee received a letter confirming that her probation was extended.  She disagreed with her manager’s assessment of her performance and she said, “you better let me go.” 

Concluding her submission, the employee said that “the dismissal was going to inevitably occur” and that the employer would not accept that there were no performance issues to be concerned about.  She argued that the payments processing system, communications, working from home and other issues were all outside her control.

In a submission provided in advance of the hearing of this dispute, the employer provided a copy of the employee’s contract of employment.  Clause 4 provides that her continued employment is subject to six months’ probation, which may be extended for longer, as determined by the company.  The employee did not successfully complete her probation and her manager proposed to extend it by three months.

At the hearing, the employee’s line manager explained the background to this decision.  She said that the employee’s job is comprised of two components,  invoicing and payments.  The employee was very competent at the invoicing, but she made a lot of mistakes on the payments part.  The manager said that a training file is available for employees to find out how to do all the aspects of their job.

On March 13th 2020, the office closed due to Covid-19 restrictions.  On April 18th, the line manager said that she arranged to meet the employee every Wednesday in the office to go through the payments process.  At the end of April, further restrictions were introduced and all the employees were sent home again.  The manager said that she kept in touch with the employee and her two other team members using the company’s instant messaging system and by phone and email.  When issues arose, she sent an email to the employee to explain the steps required to rectify mistakes.

The manager said that the employee had issues with not closing out invoices and with double payments.  She said that the same issues occurred regularly, with the result that payments had to be cancelled.  In a six-month period in 2019, before the employee doing the job, 29 payments had to be cancelled, whereas, when the employee was doing the job, 164 payments were cancelled.  In the first six months of 2021, after she had left, just eight payments were cancelled.

At the end of July, the manager set up a call with the employee.  She said that it was clear that there was a lack of understanding about how payments were to be processed.  During the call on July 31st, the employee thought that there was no issue with how she managed the payments.  She didn’t agree that she had processed double payments and she didn’t accept the guidance on how not to make double payments.

To resolve the performance issues, the manager said that she agreed with the HR manager that she would have regular one to one meetings with the employee.  She said that she didn’t refer to these meetings as “performance review meetings” but their purpose was to set aside time every Tuesday to discuss problems that had arisen.

Before the end of an employee’s probation, a line manager is required to have a discussion with the HR manager to decide if an employee is doing their job satisfactorily and if they have successfully completed their probation.  The line manager decided that the employee would benefit from more support during a three month extension to her probation.  She said that the employee disagreed and asked for an extension of one month.  The line manager said that she thought that the employee could have mastered the payments process in three months, but that one month wasn’t long enough. 

Summarising the employer’s position, Mr O’Neill said that the line manager made concerted efforts between March and September 2020 to support the employee to achieve the standard of performance required.  If, as she claims, the company wanted to let her go, her probation would not have been extended.  Mr O’Neill said that the line manager was clear about the issues that the employee needed to address, and she provided support to her to help her to competently manage the payments process.

Before reaching the conclusions I am about to set out, I have examined the documents submitted by both sides and I have listened carefully to the statements made by the employee and her line manager at the hearing on April 19th 2022.

I have some concern that the employee waited for nine months to submit this grievance to the WRC.  Her contract contained a grievance procedure, and she could have explored a more immediate resolution by using that option.  She explained that the reason for the delay submitting this grievance was because she left Ireland after she finished up in her job and she had a baby at the end of 2021.  She said that she hasn’t returned to work since her employment was terminated in October 2020.

It is apparent that, from early on after she commenced in her role, the employee competently managed the invoicing part of her job but that mistakes were made regarding the payments component.  The documents submitted by the employer show that from April 2020, and in May, July and August, the mistakes made by the employee required an intervention from her line manager, and, on some occasions, inconvenience to clients.  It is apparent from the documents that, on July 6th 2020, the employee and her manager had a difficult conversation about a problem.  The following Tuesday, the line manager suggested that they have weekly one to one meetings “to discuss goals, areas of development, training, ideas / suggestions on how I can best support you in your role, this is your time your agenda.”

The employee’s six-month probation was due to expire on September 23rd, and the line manager decided to extend it for three months.  The employee’s contract provides for such an extension and it is my view that this was a reasonable course of action, to give the employee an opportunity to benefit from further support and close supervision.  At the hearing, the employee did not accept that there was an issue with her performance and she said that she would speak to someone in HR.  In the end, she received a letter from the HR manager, confirming that her probation would be extended.  She refused to agree to the extension and she asked for her employment to be terminated.

I am satisfied that the employee’s line manager was committed to supporting her to achieve the standard required of her.  I also think that the manager was confident that, with time and additional support, the employee would have succeeded in mastering the payments aspect of her job.  If she had not had some confidence about this outcome, she would have terminated the employee’s contract at the end of her probation on September 23rd.  At the hearing, the manager said that she  had no back-up resource for the employee and her role was filled more than three months later, in January 2021.  In the meantime, at some inconvenience, she and her two team members did the employee’s job in addition to their own jobs.

Having given this matter some consideration, it seems to me that this grievance is centred on a disagreement between the employee and her manager about her performance.  While it may seem unpleasant at times, it is the job of managers to manage the performance of their teams and to establish the standard required of each employee.  While the working from home situation was not ideal, it is my view that the employee’s manager made reasonable efforts to communicate with her, to help her with misunderstandings and to ensure that she knew what was required so that she could successfully pass her probation.

I am satisfied that the employee was treated fairly by her employer, and that she initiated the termination of her employment by asking to be let go.  In this circumstance, I find that no other course of action was open to the employer.

I recommend that the employer takes no further action with regard to this dispute.