Hi, happy June everyone! How is it that we are already in June- absolutely mind boggling where the time has gone. I also don’t know about you but deciding what to wear on a daily basis because of the temperamental weather is becoming more and more of a task each day- you put on a coat and become instantly boiling despite it looking gloomy/or it randomly becoming really sunny OR you don’t wear a coat because it looks like you are at the Riviera and frost bite hits. Yes, this might be a bit on the dramatic side, but you all know exactly what I am talking about.
Anyways, what to update you on from my side? Well, I thought this week could be a bit of a whistlestop tour into the recent happenings/thoughts of Robyn- warning, mainly to do with Halle:
- Why does time seem to have sped up by like a million since having Halle? It is now June and I genuinely cannot understand what happened between January and now.
- Halle has started to repeat words now without us asking- cue… James saying a swear word I will not mention on here because he stubbed his toe, and Halle proceeding to repeat it so innocently. Let’s say it rhymes with ‘stuck’.
- Halle’s expressions are really developing now. The other day a little boy pushed her, and she genuinely made a ‘oooohhh’ sound and then proceeded to sigh loudly and death stare him out. She also was running up the isle of a food shop the other day so happily, and her shorts started falling down. She instantly grabbed them and shouted, ‘uh oh’ and yesterday she fell over and said ‘whoopsies’.
- We are currently dealing with the 2 millionth illness of the year from nursery.
- Halle keeps being put into the accident book as little kids genuinely keep biting her…I’m thinking that she must taste good.
- Halle has an unbelievable love for the song ‘Pink Pony Club’ by Chappell Roan. The minute it comes on the radio she wants everyone in the room to stop and dance.
I could go on and on and on…but probably best to stop here.
Let’s get onto the update for the week, shall we? This one is a bit more of an interesting one about an Unfair Dismissal claim that was thrown out by the Tribunal.
Without beating around the bush (no pun intended), a middle-manager was sacked after accidently revealing his private parts on a Teams call – and no you aren’t going crazy… you absolutely read that right.
To give you a bit of background, an employee joined the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS),which is a statutory body that aims to protect customers when financial services firms fail. He joined them as a Change Specialist and the following year his title changed to Digital Production Manager. The promotion saw his pay increase by around £4,000 to £58,580 a year.
On a bank holiday, said employee was on a Microsoft Teams work call with external contractors from the Capgemini tech consultancy. During such call the employee proceeded to stand up to adjust a cable behind his computer and to everyone’s shock he was wearing nothing from the waist down meaning his private parts were visible. Again… yes you are reading this right.
As you can imagine, this incident sparked a complaint from his colleagues, which then in turn instigated an investigation. During this, the employee gave his account of what happened where he claimed: “That was a bank holiday, and l did not realise when l folded the laptop camera was on and pointing to the floor and then immediately shut down the camera so that don’t know what was seen in the floor”. He also went on to say, “It is just an accident and apologies.” He admitted he did not always “wear full dress” at home. He also argued he was not culpable for his actions because they occurred on a bank holiday, adding: “Expecting me to work during public holidays is a racial discrimination.”
His employer went on to dismiss him for the following reasons:
- They rejected the suggestion that its dress code did not apply on public holidays.
- The employee’s actions had damaged the FSCS’s reputation.
- They had noted also that the employee had “not shown any remorse or apologised for his actions but rather sought to blame the external contractors on the call”.
- They were also unimpressed by inconsistent evidence from the employee who initially admitted his genitals were visible before changing his story to claim he was wearing “nude-coloured underwear”.
After being sacked the employee brought a tribunal claim for unfair dismissal as well as race discrimination. He claimed not only that he had been wrongly dismissed but also that he had been passed over for a promotion because of discrimination.
Well, what do you think the Tribunal’s decision was? They unsurprisingly decided that the employer’s decision to dismiss was reasonable and threw out his other complains. Their decision was based on the following reasons:
- The employee had not been required to work on the bank holiday and had in fact chosen to do so.
- They added: “Second, even if he were required to work inappropriately, that is no reason for appearing in a state of undress.”
- Though the panel accepted he had initially apologised they found he later “sought to obscure or deflect blame” and failed to “consistently show remorse”
- They also threw out his complaint about being denied a promotion, concluding his application had been “poor and failed to reveal sufficient relevant experience”. They continued: “The position applied for was approximately twice the claimant’s salary and FSCS was seeking relevant experience, particularly in heading departments.”
Now I must admit, when it is appropriate and I have no work calls, I do like to don my Oodie when I work from home and put on my prized ‘veg out’ clothes. But I for one have not ever thought to work half undressed…but each to their own, I guess.
Whilst it is unclear how the employee in this case thought this would go in his favour, what can be taken from this is it is always helpful to ensure you make clear to your employees what is expected of them dress wise if they work from home, to always conduct thorough, fair and proper investigations and make clear what is expected to your employees on whether they are expected to work on public holidays or not.
As always if you have any questions about anything above, or anything else, then be sure to contact your friendly Precept superheroes.
Speak soon!
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