Victimisation via Redundancy after Harassment Complaint

[Northern Guy]

A friend gave help/witness evidence at a colleague’s Bullying Sexual based Harassment case at work last year, i.e. a Protected Act. The case & appeal were dismissed by the employer (although true) as ‘minor behavioural issues’ from the manager in question. Unofficially, they were told he would be dealt with.

The manager largely stopped the bullying etc, but now a year later amongst Covid redundancies, the friend has been selected for redundancy, despite 20+ years’ experience and an excellent record versus newer problematic staff hired by the manager as little as 1 yr ago. He marked her heavily down on the subjective, unsupported scores under his control so as to make her the worst, and lied to other staff that he’d not done the scoring at all when he in fact had signed it.

The friend has emailed various senior management figures & HR claiming Victimisation under the Equality 2010 act and pointing out the selection process unfairness (e.g. no points for certain key skills or experience; equal weighting of non-equally relevant abilities etc). The HR response is trite and along the lines of ‘We always like feedback, we’ll discuss this at your follow-up redundancy meeting’. This might even be her last meeting; we’re wondering if they’re ignoring the claim of victimisation which I thought had to pause the redundancy process.

Can a Solicitor or ACAS do anything as the employer appears to be taking a hard nosed ‘Don’t Care’ stance?

[ULA]

Most solicitors whilst an internal process is ongoing will not want to get involved.

Has the friend raised the issue formally as a grievance concerning the redundancy process and the objectivity of the manager involved given the history? If the email sent by your friend did not expressly say it was a grievance it may account for the trite response, albeit they maybe should have read between the line? So I suggest that if it was not made clear it was a grievance then a formal grievance should be raised.

If a grievance is being raised over a manager and their objectivity in conducting the redundancy process then in my opinion it would be prudent for the company to remove either remove that manager from the process or to bring in a supplementary person to ensure there is no bias being exercised, for example in the selection criteria scoring and thereby ensuring there is some oversight on the decision.

[Northern Guy]

Thanks for your response. You may be correct that she failed to use the word Grievance, enabling the HR Director to ignore the obvious direction of her email. The email contested the many poor scores then went on to highlight the scorers dishonesty (saying it wasn't him), how her long excellent service and responsibilities in contrast to newer staff did not sit well with these scores, that she'd not been furloughed whilst the newer staff had been etc. By any fair judgement the redundancy score was a set-up causing shock to all who know her. She did expressly cite Victimisation under the Equality Act 2010 and refer to harassment, I thought the former at least would have started something formal? But she didn't expressly say 'Please treat this as Grievance', so yes that may have left wriggle room for an HR Director who hugely disappointed us last year.

I will advise her to reply to the effect this is not feedback but a Grievance and say she does not consider the man impartial. He may have pulled this particular stunt past his newly appointed boss, who'll have taken his word for the scores lacking much staff knowledge himself, we don't know how that boss will react. And the culprit is probably not 'loved' much by the Company after last year's saga, he did a lot of horrible/stupid things. But sometimes Companies back managers despite quietly thinking them idiots.

Could ACAS step in at any stage? They did once in a different workplace to my knowledge and saved the day for the employee.

[ULA]

The current process is that if an individual wants to make an employment tribunal claim they will first have to do to early conciliation via ACAS. An ACAS conciliator will then talk to both parties about the dispute with a view to trying to get an agreement without having to go to tribunal.

However this would be after the event of any termination of employment.