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.

A private member’s bill extending maternity protections passed its final reading in the House of Commons last week and is expected to become law in England, Wales and Scotland later in the year.

The new legislation - The Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill - which was introduced by Labour MP Dan Jarvis, was unopposed by MP’s and will now be heard in the House of Lords.

Currently, under Regulation 10 of the Maternity and Parental Leave Etc Regulations 1999 (MAPLE), during a redundancy exercise employers have an obligation to offer women on maternity or parental leave, a suitable vacancy where one exists.

The Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination Bill will extend this redundancy protection to apply to pregnant women - from the moment she discloses her pregnancy to her employer - through to new parents returning to work from a relevant form of leave, until the child is 18 months old. 

This means a mother returning from a year of maternity leave would receive an additional six months’ redundancy protection. The 18-month window will apply to Maternity Leave and Shared Parental Leave.

According to a study by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, at least 54,000 women a year experience pregnancy and maternity discrimination, or are pushed out of the workforce after becoming pregnant. Women who are illegally discriminated against often find it difficult to bring a case against their employers, not least because there is only a three-month time limit to make a claim.

Dan Jarvis MP for Barnsley Central said:

“At the heart of this Bill are tens of thousands of women pushed out of the workforce each year simply for being pregnant. I’m proud this new legislation will go some way to providing pregnant women and new mums greater protections in the workplace. I want to thank all those who’ve supported the Bill and I look forward to working with them to ensure it passes into law.”

Business Minister Dean Russell stated:

Being an expectant or new parent is already a hugely exciting yet anxious time without the added pressure of worrying whether your job is on the line.

By extending the UK’s world class workplace protections, today’s reforms will help to remove workplace discrimination and provide improved job security for employees at such an important and precious time in their lives.”

According to an article by GQ Littler - a leading specialist employment law firm and the largest global employment and labour law practice devoted exclusively to representing management - nine employment disputes relating to alleged discrimination against transgender employees reached decision stage at the employment tribunals in 2021-22, nearly double that of the previous year.

The Equality Act 2010 protects people against discrimination, harassment or victimisation in employment based on nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. 

Cases of alleged discrimination against transgender employees included:

Colleagues deliberately using the wrong pronouns about or to transgender colleagues, harassment for using changing rooms and rest rooms aligned with their gender and having other employees making transphobic comments on social media.

Caroline Baker, Partner at GQ Littler and author of the article said:

“The rise in disputes, albeit from a small base, suggests more could be done to ensure that transgender individuals feel safe and supported in the workplace.”

“Actions that employers are looking at implementing to create an inclusive workplace include encouraging employees to state their chosen pronouns, installing some unisex bathrooms in the office or introducing gender neutral uniforms. Employers could also review their application forms to ensure that employees are able to correctly express their chosen gender identity.”

“Training can help prevent discrimination based on a lack of understanding of gender identity.”a

Conservative MP Dean Russell has recently proposed a new bill to the House of Commons, which would make it a legal requirement for businesses to offer mental health first aid (MHFA) training.

Mr Russell proposed the new law as a Ten Minute Rule Bill, which allows a backbench MP to make a case for new legislation they would like to see passed into law.

The MP is allowed to speak uninterrupted for up to ten minutes - another MP will then be given the opportunity to make an opposing speech, which must also last no longer than ten minutes - before the House decides whether it should proceed to a first reading.  Ten Minute Rule Bills rarely become law but can be used to help raise awareness of an issue.

Mr Russell - the MP for Watford - attempted to put forward similar legislation two years ago in 2021, when he referenced the work of the Where’s Your Head At! Campaign. This campaign gained 200,000 signatures asking to make mental health first aid part of workplace first aid. 

The proposal comes on the back of data from Health and Safety Executive (HSE) who estimated that mental ill-health, including stress, depression and anxiety, accounted for around half of all work related illnesses last year – costing employers an estimated 17 million work days. In his speech, Mr Russell also referenced a 2022 report by Deloitte which informed that the cost of mental health to UK businesses is £56 billion a year and that 54% of workers who take more than two days of leave due to mental health related absences will go on to leave their job.

Mr Russell stated that at the heart of the Bill is “a simple request: to create parity between mental health and physical health first aid in the workplace.”

He added:

“Mental health first aiders, I must be clear, are not expected to be counsellors or psychologists, but just like physical first aiders, who are not expected to be paramedics or surgeons, this bill will simply mean workers have someone to signpost them to the support and help they need when they need it.”

He continued:

“We spend so much time in the workplace, yet we cannot always be ourselves when we are there. It can be hard to show our true face when times are tough because we aim, as always, to be professional. But people do not wear bandages to show where they have anxiety and depression. Many learn to hide their pain in fear of damaging their careers.”

At the time of its reading, the Bill received no objections and so will go through to a second reading on 24th February.

Tesco Bank - who are owned by Britain’s biggest supermarket chain Tesco - is the latest major bank to offer a pay increase to their staff, to help with the cost of living.

Around 3,400 members of staff - more than 90% of employees - are eligible for an increase of £1,250, which was effective from January 8th 2023 and is in addition to the bank’s annual pay review which will follow in May.

The salary uplift followed talks between trade unions Usdaw and Unite with Tesco Bank and makes them the latest in a line of banks - including HSBC, Santander, Barclays, Virgin Money, Nationwide, Co-operative Bank, Metro Bank, Monzo and TSB - to have made cost of living payments to their staff.

Last November Lloyds Banking Group gave their staff a minimum pay rise of £2,000, which came after a one-off £1,000 bonus for around 64,000 of its staff in August.

Natwest provided a one-off payment of £1,000 for 39,000 employees last year and last month announced their 2023 annual pay offer - comprising of a minimum £2,000 per year increase for UK members of staff, effective from 1st April 2023.

In a statement, Daniel Adams, Usdaw National Officer, said:

“As the cost of living crisis has deepened, Usdaw has continued to engage with Tesco Bank on what can be done to support employees through this incredibly difficult time. As a result, and following challenging yet constructive negotiations before Christmas, we were pleased to be able to agree to a £1,250 uplift to salaries ahead of the normal pay review in May.

“Not only is this a welcome step but, given this is a permanent increase rather than one-off payment, it will also flow through into other elements of the reward package, including pensions and bonus.”

Gerry Mallon - Chief Executive of Tesco Bank - said:

“The rising cost of living is having an impact on households across the country, and we’ve been listening to colleagues about how this is affecting them.

“That’s why we’ve taken action and awarded a permanent increase to base pay for the majority of our colleagues.

“The salary increase aims to provide sustainable, long-term support to colleagues, including our contact centre colleagues who show great commitment to helping our customers in the current economic climate.”

Google’s parent company Alphabet have announced that they are to axe around 12,000 employees worldwide – about 6% of their global workforce.

The job cuts will affect departments across the company including engineering, products teams and recruitment and will begin immediately in the US.

The announcement comes soon after Microsoft confirmed that they were letting go of 10,000 people across their global workforce and Amazon said it was cutting 18,000 jobs earlier in January. According to redundancy tracking site layoffs.fyi, there have been close to 40,000 tech layoffs since the start of 2023.

CEO Sundar Pichai announced that they would offer US staff severance packages of at least 16 weeks of salary, plus two weeks for every additional year at Google - this is as well as six months of health coverage, job placement services, 2022 bonuses and remaining vacation time.

In an internal email Mr Pichai said:

“I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here,”

He told employees:

“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,”

“To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”

Mr Pichai thanked staff for "working so hard" in their roles, adding that their "contributions have been invaluable".

While more redundancies are expected globally, he added that in other countries, the process “will take longer due to local laws and practices.” 

The Treasury is said to be considering proposals to give tax breaks to over-50s who return to the workplace, in order to encourage them out of retirement.

In a bid to cut the number of inactive middle-aged Britons, Senior Ministers are apparently contemplating granting a year-long income tax break to those who return to work after a career break.

According to government figures, around nine million people in the UK are now “economically inactive”, with a report finding that a wave of people taking early retirement during the pandemic was likely the cause of the increase of 565,000 inactive Britons since the start of covid.

The idea is a part of a number of plans being considered, which also includes allowing those claiming disability benefits to have them removed gradually, in a bid to avoid 'incentivising' people to stay off work.

It is believed that Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride has been assessing the benefits system, as disability claims are up 70% since the pandemic - with estimates that the annual cost will rise to £8.2billion by 2027. 

A shake-up of the system could include reforming what has been described as the “perverse” fit-for-work tests, in which people have to prove they are unable to work, rather than focusing on what they are able to do.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to boost economic growth but is thought to be anxious that this could be stunted if they cannot encourage people back to work and ease the labour shortages.

Last week a spokesperson for No 10 said that the Prime Minister had made it clear that “there were a range of things we are looking at, but obviously it is for the Budget to talk about these kinds of things”.

A group of 43 former employees at Twitter’s UK operation have sought legal advice over their recent redundancies, claiming that their severance terms were not honoured and the process was a ‘sham’.

The former employees - who are being represented by London-based Winckworth Sherwood - accuse the company of "unlawful, unfair and completely unacceptable treatment".

The law firm says that - despite redundancies of more than 100 people requiring a 45-day consultation period so that terms might be negotiated - the employees were treated as if they had already been dismissed when hearing of their redundancy on 18th November 2022.

The workers were allegedly immediately cut off from internal company systems, access to laptops and offices, which effectively suspended them from their jobs when Twitter had no contractual right to do so - and whilst also making it impossible for employee representatives to assist their colleagues.

Twitter had justified the redundancies as a cost cutting exercise but Winckworth argue whether the redundancies were genuine, given the fact Twitter was still highlighting ‘future opportunities’ in London on the career section of its corporate website. Nonetheless, some employees were contacted on 23rd December 2022 insisting they respond to invitations about individual consultations on redundancy and even though, it is alleged, some had been given deadlines to accept settlement terms before their consultations.

In addition, Winckworth claim that the UK Twitter staff who were let go were offered two months of gross basic salary, in addition to an extra two weeks' gross basic salary for each year of employment - which differed from the company's previous severance terms of 16 weeks basic pay - offered by Meta who had owned the company before Elon Musk took over.

These redundancies are the latest since Musk took over Twitter in a $44bn (£36bn) deal in late October. He is estimated to have laid off around 3,500 employees, or about half the company's workforce since the takeover. This has led to four class action lawsuits and 200 legal complaints in the US from affected workers.

Rest Less – a digital community launched in early 2019 to advocate for people in their 50s, 60s and beyond – have analysed figures released in November 2022 from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and found that there are nearly 300,000 people aged 50+ on a zero hours contract, which is the highest for this age group since records began.

The figures show that the number of people aged 50+ working under a zero hours contract has  increased by 99% in just under 10 years, from 149,000 people in October-December 2013,  compared with 296,000 in July-September 2022.

This means that more than a quarter (28%) of the total number of zero hours contracts are held by workers aged 50+, beaten only by the 16 to 24-year-old age group, who hold the largest percentage of zero-hours contracts at 36% of the total. Their figures have risen 77% from 2013 to 2022 with 380,000 workers o these contracts. 

Stuart Lewis, Chief Executive of Rest Less, commented as follows: 

“Zero hours contracts can be a suitable option for people looking for hyper-flexible work whose schedules change regularly. For this reason, zero hours contracts are common amongst young people and also second jobbers who want to earn extra income on the side on a flexible basis. In the absence of sufficiently flexible work from many mainstream employers, zero hours contracts can also offer flexibility for older workers juggling caring and other life responsibilities with fluctuating schedules.

‘However, for people relying solely on a zero hours contract as their main source of income, they can be fraught with challenges and anxiety about where and when the next paycheck will come. In addition, employment rights are limited and amidst a cost of living crisis they can leave employees in an extremely vulnerable position.

‘The large rise in the number of people aged 50+ working under zero hours contracts is worrying. Whilst the flexibility they offer is a good fit for some, we know of many individuals who have turned to zero hours contracts as they have been unable to find a more permanent or structured type of work due to age discrimination or a lack of workplace flexibility. Others are juggling zero hours contracts alongside other part-time roles to top up working hours to make ends meet amidst double digit inflation.”

In an effort to boost the socioeconomic diversity of its recruits, Spanish bank Santander is to become the first major bank in Britain to drop its requirement for graduate recruits to achieve at least a 2.1 degree and will hence force look at hiring graduates with a third class degree. 

The Spanish lender - which has a large network of branches in the UK - offers a graduate programme which gives the new joiners experience across many of the bank’s business areas including audit, commercial banking, everyday banking and risk departments.

Although the programme will only take 68 recruits this September, the bank believes the change will lead to an extra 64,000 more applicants being eligible, as around 16% of students who leave university graduate with a 2:2 or a third class degree.

Successful applicants will receive career coaching and mentoring from senior leaders and at the of the two to three year programme will be offered a permanent role.

Santander’s HR director, Anouska Ramsay, said:

“Academic achievement is important, but it is only one of many factors we look at when searching for new talent,”.

She added:

“We believe potential can be found anywhere and this move reinforces our commitment to finding the best candidates from a wide range of backgrounds.”

The decision to drop minimum hiring requirements was also scrapped last year by accountancy firm PwC and asset manager Schroders, although Santander are the first UK bank to implement the policy and forms part of their efforts to boost the proportion of employees from lower socioeconomic backgrounds in senior roles from 28% to 35% by 2030.