A former manager employed as an Account Director by Tango Networks - a communications firm - has been awarded more than £71,000 compensation by an Employment Tribunal after being unfairly dismissed by way of age discrimination.
The Claimant - Mr Jones - started working for the company in 2019 when he was 59 years old. His salary was £60,000, plus up to £40,000 of commission which was made through the number of sim cards he sold through resellers.
In 2020, the company were looking to recruit a new salesperson and Mr Jones recommended someone he knew - Mr Grimes - to his boss, Mr Hesketh.
Mr Hesketh had 16 candidates for the vacancy and interviewed three, including Mr Grimes. Mr Grimes was 57 at the time, whilst the other two candidates were in their 40’s. After concluding the interviews, the Tribunal were told by Mr Jones that Mr Hesketh remarked to him that “a lot of the candidates we were interviewing were a mirror image of me, white middle aged men and that it was a shame that we did not attract more diversity into the application process”. The Tribunal also heard that Mr Hesketh had described desirable colleagues or candidates as 'high energy', 'energetic' and 'youthful'.
On 18th December 2020, a note from Mr Hesketh to the company's CEO said he wanted to offer the two candidates the job, on the 'provision' they 'move Mark on very early in Jan 2021'. Subsequently, Mr Jones had a panic attack during a week off in late December which meant that he was off work until early January 2021.
Tango put to the Tribunal that 'move him on' had meant 'move his performance on' and argued that it had not meant it to mean they should replace Mr Jones before he had two years' service. The Tribunal rejected this, concluding that there had been a firm plan to dismiss Mr Jones.
When he returned to work in January 2021, Mr Jones was subject to a performance appraisal where Mr Hesketh raised an issue about him not negotiating a deal with a client and placed him on a performance improvement plan (PIP). Mr Jones disputed the need for a PIP and put in a grievance stating that the real reason for the plan was his age and that Mr Hesketh wished to replace him with a younger person.
In a grievance outcome letter in February, all Mr Jones’ complaints were unsupported, leading to his resigning from the company.
In his resignation letter, Mr Jones wrote:
“I am shocked, appalled and saddened at the blatant manipulation and lies set out in the grievance report and believe this is only designed as a tick box exercise to make me look bad and to further a performance management process which should never have been carried out in the first place.”
The Tribunal ruled the grievance process had not been dealt with 'impartially' and that it had merely been a rubber stamping exercise.
Employment Judge Ian Miller, said:
“We have found that the respondent did seek to dismiss Mr Jones at the meeting on 18 December and thereafter subjected him to a PIP process with the intention of dismissing him.”
With regard to the age discrimination claim, Judge Miller said:
“Mr Jones was replaced, initially, by at least one younger person doing the same job.
Mr Hesketh referred to wanting to change the dynamics of the team, and he wanted a more diverse workforce.
In our view, the evidence about this is enough to reverse the burden of proof. We could conclude that, whether consciously or unconsciously, Mr Hesketh perceived Mr Jones as un-dynamic and he associated more dynamic people with the characteristics of younger people.”
Compensation for Mr Jones amounted to £71,441.36 which included a sum of £28,807.05 for unfair dismissal and £20,000 for injury to feelings.
