Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

Health Service Worker

Health Service Employer

Representatives

Trade Union Official

 HR and line manager

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

IR - SC - 00000491

25/07/2022

This dispute is concerned with the location/base and some of the related conditions involving a senior OT manager in the employment.

There is a fairly long history here which I do not propose to recount in terms of the chronology as it is well known to the parties and also refers to the employee’s personal circumstances, save to say that no progress was made over the course of two hearings. The first hearing was adjourned to allow the employer to make a proposal but that resulted in  little more than a recitation of what had gone before. The internal procedure was exhausted by the employee. For the record that proposal was issued belatedly and was not on the AO file in advance of the second hearing. However it was with SIPTU and the employee from the week before the hearing.

The employee is employed in a specialist post in a community sector area covering two counties. She has been based on one of those locations since 2013 . In 2016 she was promoted and remained in that same location making her personal childcare/school special needs around that location. Since 2021 she has been in dispute with the employer about a proposal that she change her base to the other part of the sector with the option of hotdesking in the base where she currently operates. Practical and operational arguments were advanced on her behalf as to why it was unreasonable of the employer not to provide a desk for her in her current location( rather than hotdesking) and why it is neither necessary nor reasonable for her to move to that base where she has never worked other from attending for meetings when required. Any move would also result in a potential loss in the current expenses system.

The base for the team known and Rehab and Recovery is in the part of the sector where the employee is not based. There is a desk for her there which she was shown on her appointment to the promotional post. Management wish to develop the R and R team which is not currently working to best effect and in having it based at the other location, the client base in that area is also expected to  expand. There was a delay in implementing the changeover to the location stipulated in the job spec for the promotional post but they are satisfied that the temporary nature of the current arrangement including the provision of her own office to the employee was always known to her as part of the local dialogue with her line manager. It is acknowledged that the employee had made personal family arrangements to coincide with her current base. That she has a client base in the area of her current location is also recognised and a hot desking arrangement is offered for this reason-but not a fixed desk-that will be provided in the base of the R and R team. Expenses currently paid are in breach of the normal arrangements and will be brought into line with those procedures/revenue guidelines.

It is quite clear that the worker was aware that the post she applied for  committed her to working in R and R team base. For operational reasons the employer has endeavoured to move her to a position where she will work from that location with available hot desking facilities when required in another location. As I indicated at the hearing, this dispute places an adjudication officer in a position between the employer’s operational requirements and the workers personal circumstances. It is well established over many decades that the state industrial relations machinery does not take on  the role of telling any employer how they should organise and run their business including in the public services. In this case there is an added backdrop of an industrial relations collective bargaining agreement which committed the employer to retaining certain services including the one of which the complainant is the senior OT in the location which she applied to work in and where she does not want to be relocated as her base,,,. It transpires that there is another employee in a similar position to the employee in this case. As this is a relatively small group of employees that two key workers have the same issue is  more significant that might initially appear. At the resumed hearing, the trade union referred to another grievance being pursued by the same employee. Finally, as part of the equation, there is an issue about expenses paid based on the current arrangement which the employer has indicated will be revisited and therefore potentially changed/reduced in order to comply with revenue guidelines.

Custom and practice in public sector employments can often be described as a state of habits or operational deficits which are allowed to develop by the employer which, when they seek to change them for their operational or cost reasons frequently result in considerable upset and to the workers concerned-and certainly that is the case in this situation. As is the intransigence on both sides. The Stage 3 Hearer referred to the poor relationship between the employee and her line manager as a result of this dispute. No winners and nothing gained so far anyway.also

The recommendation below is an effort to recognise and facilitate the needs and responsibilities of both parties and as a compromise between their stated positions.