Sometimes Tribunal decisions make you want to go and lie down in a dark room.
In this case, according to a report in The Times on Saturday the employee had a terrible attendance record and when he did come in, he didn’t do a great deal. Who wouldn’t get frustrated at that?
The manager showed their exasperation towards the individual by sighing and exhaling loudly. Shocking I know. Disgraceful behaviour! According to the judge, such actions can have a ‘damning effect’ on an individual’s ‘self esteem and anxiety’.
As you will know from my previous articles, non-verbal expressions can be classed as harassment or discrimination as well as what you say or do. But sighing? Apparently, yes!
The individual concerned has ADHD and linked their poor attendance and behaviour in work to their medical condition, meaning they could claim that these non-verbal expressions directed towards him counted as disability discrimination. He won the case and all that remains now is for the Tribunal to decide how much compensation he receives.
Although cases like this are thankfully rare, it is imperative that employers train all their employees, including managers, on how to behave in work. That is the only effective way to avoid, or at least reduce the chances of being taken to costly Tribunals.
Our ‘banter and behaviour in the workplace’ e-learning course does just this. In it we discuss, with actual Tribunal examples to bring learning points to life, where the bar is in terms of what is acceptable behaviour and banter at work.
It also includes a proven way of tackling individuals who go a bit too far without having to sack half of your workforce.
Banter & Behaviour in the Workplace
This new e-learning course describes the various forms of harassment and discrimination in an easy-to-understand format so organisations can appreciate where the bar is at work between acceptable behaviour and that which is likely to lead to a grievance or successful Tribunal claim.
The above link gives more details about the 40 minute course along with a 2 minute demo that discusses the learning points from a well known sexual discrimination case where lifeguards made lewd comments about a female swimmer whilst in work.
I should probably confess here that although the course includes non-verbal behaviours that may be deemed to be harassment or discrimination, we do not go as far as advising you not to sigh. This case really does seem to have gone too far. I look forward to reading the actual judgement to see if there was more to the case that can explain the judgement but The Times is normally pretty good at reporting cases accurately.
For more details about the banter and behaviour in the workplace course, HR, discrimination or harassment in general please contact us.