Acceptable Boundaries of Behaviour at Work

[Bromptonaut]

The Employment Tribunal has recently upheld the dismissal for Gross Misconduct of a staff member at an Undertakers firm because of his use of 'pet names' for female members of staff. The Claimant agreed he'd used terms like “sweet”, “love”, “chick”, “honey” and “babes”. He said that he gave men pet names such as “mate” or “pal”.

There was more egregious behaviour to around looking up a colleague's skirt and calling her Rachieboobs. The claimant said these were misunderstandings and that the latter was a 'freudian slip' - a phrase he later affected not to fully understand.

The tribunal found that his behaviour was discriminatory and that the dismissal was justified although another set of allegations from a different employee were not taken into account due to inadequacies in the Employer's processes. It found the claimant's assertion that use of mate etc were comparable to the terms used for women to be ill founded.

Media report here: https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/men-call...-as-calling-female-colleagues-love-tribunal/?

Full reasoned decision here: https://assets.publishing.service.g...D_Hollowell___Sons_Limited_-_2405802_2020.pdf

To my mind he's banged to rights. It's nearly 40 years since I was asked a question at a promotion board where the underlying subject was sexual harassment; it's not new. Still seem to be far too many blokes who think it's just 'bantz'.

 

[Beebo]

Taking the name calling in isolation I would put “sweet”, and “love”, in a separate lesser category to “chick”, “honey” and “babes”. Which are completely unacceptable.

 

[mjr]

The Employment Tribunal has recently upheld the dismissal for Gross Misconduct of a staff member at an Undertakers firm because of his use of 'pet names' for female members of staff. [...]
There was more egregious behaviour to around looking up a colleague's skirt and calling her Rachieboobs. The claimant said these were misunderstandings [...]

From what I've read, he was dismissed for implying he was looking up her skirt and also for giving an unwanted massage to another worker he managed. The inappropriate "banter", "pet names" and facebook-stalking was just added fuel on the fire.

Let's not get misled: the "banter" is creepy but the upskirting and massage is worse.

 

[newfhouse]

Yes, he sounds like a creep. I wonder if he’d have been fired solely for the over-familiar names. That feels more like words of advice or written warning territory to me, unless it persisted after prior disciplinary interventions.

 

[Bromptonaut]

From what I've read, he was dismissed for implying he was looking up her skirt and also for giving an unwanted massage to another worker he managed. The inappropriate "banter", "pet names" and facebook-stalking was just added fuel on the fire.

The judgement is one of the most confusing and ill-written I've ever seen. I'm not sure of the extent to which that is a failing of the Tribunal and its proof reader or their quoting directly from the respondent employer's investigation reports. It's confusing because the headnote says the claim for unfair dismissal succeeds but para 167 says it is dismissed. That may be a technicality to do with how the case was treated in the round with significant parts of the Empoyer's investigation, including whom they chose to deal with the claimant's appeal being flawed but it still looks odd.

The two key reasons for dismissal were the 'Rachieboobs' incident and the upskirting. The full circumstances of the latter involved the parents of a stillborn baby wanting to sit with the body which was in a Moses basket. The claimant's offence was joking about something running down the complainant's leg and the inference the body was 'leaking'.

The allegation of the unwanted massage seems to have been disregarded because that aspect of the employer's investigation was also flawed.

 

[mjr]

It's confusing because the headnote says the claim for unfair dismissal succeeds but para 167 says it is dismissed.

¶167 says the claim is dismissed because ¶159 says no remedy is due because he would(should?) have been dismissed anyway. The headnote probably says the unfair claim succeeds because ¶146-154 conclude it was procedurally unfair.

I do wonder a bit whether the claimant might have got a better result if he'd only claimed unfair dismissal (due to the arbiter being linked to the case) rather than also sex discrimination which meant the tribunal investigated the allegations deeply too.

The allegation of the unwanted massage seems to have been disregarded because that aspect of the employer's investigation was also flawed.

Yes, the tribunal didn't embrace it, but it seems to have been more reason for his firing than most of the names.

 

[BoldonLad]

Seems like unacceptable behaviour full stop to me, regardless of where it occurred