Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

Health Service Employee

Health Service Employer

Representatives

Union Official 

HR 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 - 00000544

09/08/2022

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

IR - SC - 00000545

09/08/2022

This dispute originated in an interview for a paramedic position for which the employee was deemed unsuccessful. Following correspondence and then stage 1 2 and 3 grievance referrals, the employee received a response from the HR manager who represented the employer at the hearing. He understood that was the outcome of the stage 3 grievance referral. However, it emerged the hearing that the HR manager had conducted a review. It was contended that there was no stage 3 referral received by management prior to June 2021. The employee was in a position to provide a copy of the email containing a stage 3 referral to a different HR manager who had informed his HR colleague that he had not received any stage 3 appeal. At the hearing, the HR manager contended that the employer had acted favourably towards the employee in retaining him in employment after his unsuccessful application for the paramedic post and had granted him incremental credit. The employee side provided correspondence which indicated that the process for appointing the employee to the second post was already in train before his unsuccessful interview and that his application for incremental credit was in fact rejected (by the same HR manager to whom he had submitted his stage 3 grievance and who in turn said he did not receive that appeal). Compensation for xx was sought on behalf of the employee.

The employee attended for his final paramedic interview in March 2020. The interview was conducted remotely. In June 2020 he commenced correspondence with management about the manner in which the interview was conducted, primarily about the quality of the connection. A SKYPE connection was not possible and the interview was changed to What’s App on his phone. He described a very bad connection throughout the interview which meant that he had to ask the interviewers to repeat questions and they were getting annoyed. He understood that his was the only interview conducted in this manner, that others were held face to face shortly afterwards. Subsequently he submitted a grievance. This was a more detailed document referring to the connection problems adding points about the call logs he had completed. He then went on to criticise the interviewers’ preparation. In that document he also complained about one of the interviewers referring to a group incident that had occurred previously.  Generally, his complaint was about unfairness and unfairness compared to others. The stage 1 hearer issued a report in October 2020 to the effect that he could not resolve the issues raised.

There was a stage 2 grievance hearing which involved a meeting with the hearer in December 2020 and a decision in January 2021. That hearer stated that the interviewers accepted there were some technical issues on the day of the interview but that in spite of those difficulties interviewers said there was enough evidence to determine that the employee did not meet the requisite standard for the appointment.

In February 2021, the employee sent an email to a named HR manager as advised by the stage 2 hearer. He received no reply and in June 2021 he wrote to the HR Manager present at the hearing (second HR manager) in a document entitled Grievance Stage 3. He referred to his correspondence to the HR Manager in February 2021 and that he had received no reply. The second HR manager wrote to him in August 2021 to the effect that she could find no record of him lodging a grievance at stage 1 or stage 2. She had spoken with the interviewers who informed her that there was no connection problem on the day of the interview. She then went on to deal with other aspects of his correspondence including a reference to using the Dignity at Work Policy, concluding that her report was at stage 3 of the grievance procedure while noting that the HR manager issued a decision stating that she could not find any record of the stage 1 and 2 grievance references. . His request for a meeting with the second HR manager was not facilitated.

Compensation was sought primarily because of the mishandling of the grievance process in not meeting the employee at some stages and simply accepting the interviewers’ position as the outcome at others. The employee had suffered a major setback to his career as a result of the unsuccessful interview the outcome of which he felt was affected by the poor connection and which he felt did not reflect the work he had done in preparation for that interview following his unsuccessful attempt on the first occasion.

The employee commenced employment as a trainee on 29 January 2018 on a two-year specific purpose contract. He received an eight-week extension to allow him a second interview following his first unsuccessful attempt. When he was unsuccessful for a second time at the interview in March 2020 he was retained in employment through appointment to another post and he received incremental credit. In June 2020 the employee began to engage with management about his unsuccessful interview-some three months after the event. His grievance was considered at stages 1 and 2. There was no stage 3 grievance received by HR until June 2021. That grievance included examples of alleged bullying and intimidation. The HR Manager reviewed the case file, the HR file together with training records and issued a decision in August 2021. In that Decision she advised the employee that he could make a complaint on aspects of his grievance under the DAW policy. No complaint was lodged under the DAW policy.

The position sought by the employee is a highly skilled role which must be performed to a high standard based on the approved educational standards. Details of the essential requirements of the post were summarised in the submission. At the hearing and responding to the point about not meeting with the employee as required under the grievance procedure, the HR manager stated that she had conducted a review and that HR colleague informed her that he had not received any stage 3 appeal from the employee.  

It would not be uncommon in some parts of this employment to find that grievance procedures were long drawn out entirely on the employer side. In this case the initial delay was down to the employee whereas in a situation where it is the outcome of an interview which is in question an early appeal/inquiry process is essential. Three months later everyone including the interviewers will have moved on. Indeed, the employee had moved on to another permanent role in the employment. And there was a further long delay by the employee-between August 2021 when the second HR Manager issued her first response to the correspondence of June 2021 and August 2022 when the dispute was referred to the WRC. Along the way, the employee chose to expand a genuine sense of grievance about the manner in which an interview was conducted into allegations of a personal nature against one of the interviewees which had never been formalised by him or others in that disaffected group. It is difficult to see how that approach helped his cause. Indeed, the HR Manager at the hearing felt compelled to tell him that he could use the DAW policy and was very pointed in referring to his failure to do so.

On the substance of the original grievance, if the interview was as problematic for the employee as he has consistently described it-it simply should not have proceeded. The employee was fighting for his career, one he had trained for over the previous two years and which, when the employer did give him a second attempt, they should have ensured that exercise was not only fair to him but could be  seen to be fair to him. They too had made a significant investment in the previous two plus years.  The documentation provided by the employee alongside his narrative suggests that he really made a big effort to succeed at the second attempt. A remote interview might have been the only realistic option at the time, but it is a virtual interview setting and must be no less accommodating to the interviewee than an in person setting. The contradictions between the review report and the stage 2 hearers conclusion are hard to understand as was the failure of the HR manager to respond to the email of February 2020 seeking a stage 3 hearing. At all stages it does appear that whatever the interviewers said held sway-they said therefore it is - does not seem like a genuine grievance process. And no dates or notes of meetings in any process provided when they did take place.

I find the claims of facilitating the employee with an alternative post and granting incremental credit as presented at the hearing somewhat exaggerated in the way they were presented as a gesture of altruism by the employer. The employee had actually topped the list of the applicants for the other panel prior to the unsuccessful interview.

There are flaws in the way both the employer and the employee conducted themselves between March 2020 and August 2022. Given the delays on the part of the employee and the manner in which he presented his case, any compensation can only be minimal and only awarded on the basis of the failure of the employer to hear the stage 3 grievance and the incomplete manner in which the stage 2 and the HR manager approached  the issues before them-i.e., giving meaningful weight only to the position of the interviewers. This matter needs to be closed with both parties having hopefully learned some lessons about how to go about handling grievances.  There was a discussion at the hearing about the possibility of holding a stage 3 hearing through an external person appointed for this purpose, however given the passage of time it really seems more appropriate that everyone involved moves on and closes this particular chapter.