Taking Offence at Gossip - more workplace pitfalls
Posted on 25th October 2024 at 13:09
A male delivery driver asked for a flexible working change, involving Fridays off, to enable him to cope with new paternity duties. His employer granted the request. Six months later, having unsuccessfully submitted a grievance about his colleagues’ reaction, he resigned and claimed for harassment related to sex. Two years on, a newspaper headline: “father wins £20K payout after colleagues ‘gossiped’ about change to family friendly hours.” Let’s take a closer look at Rawlins v DPD Group UK.
The driver, Courtney Rawlins, was entitled to succeed on three grounds, in the eyes of the tribunal. DPD had “breached his confidentiality and allowed colleagues to gossip about him in connection with his amended hours”. It had allowed colleagues to complain about the flexible working request. It had assigned him extra parcels on occasions because his “extra day off” meant he could cope with this.
What was the breach of confidentiality? Evidently an administrator had told a number of colleagues about Mr Rawlins’ request, instead of keeping it to himself. Regardless of the fact that Mr Rawlins’ absence on Fridays would become obvious in due course, this was deemed culpable.
The complaints? Somewhat unclear. No employer can anticipate an imminent complaint and prevent it being made, and on this occasion none of the complaints became grievances. However, an internal handover from the manager who approved Mr Rawlins’ request was evidently not handled as well as it could have been.
The extra work? Evidently more to the point than met the eye, involving a delivery route often covered by a team of two, and a suggestion that records could be falsified. As to the “extra day off”, evidence of a conversation that could have been a light hearted joke went unchallenged in cross-examination. A bad mistake.
Overall, Mr Rawlins was found to have been a victim of unwanted conduct violating his dignity and creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading and humiliating or offensive environment at work. It evidently did not matter that most of this went on behind his back. He came to hear of it. By reference to his flexible working arrangements, it was sex related. Whether any different view might have been taken, if the “gossip” had not been perceived to flow from the administrator’s loose talk early on, is open to debate.
As to the award, which followed a 4 day hearing with 6 witnesses, this was not in fact “£20K for gossip”. The hurt feelings element was £8,000 (“top end of lower Vento”, in legal terminology), the balance mainly comprising past loss of earnings along with interest.
What lessons are to be learned? Plainly it was unwise for the administrator to have spoken out of turn to others whose business it was not. In turn, a more carefully handled grievance and a few choice words about stopping the gossip might have gone a long way. Whether the tribunal paid sufficient regard to the obvious nature of the Fridays off is, one might observe, split milk under the bridge.
Are you facing a tricky grievance that might call for a fresh pair of eyes? Any alarm bells from the Equality Act in play? Get in touch. Contact David Cooper on 0121 325 5402 or via dmc@coxcooper.co.uk .
Tagged as: flexible working, grievances, harassment, sexual harassment, Vento bands, violation of dignity
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