A former operators contact centre employee has won an employment tribunal against the centre operator after it was ruled she was unfairly dismissed following incidents of bullying.
Fay Hand, who had worked as an operations manager for EE in Darlington for 17 years, lost her job in September last year after an incident in which a colleague was kicked in the head after he hid a fellow employee’s car keys.
The man who was kicked, Grant Potter, was accused by the perpetrator – who has not been named – of bullying him numerous times prior to the incident. Other bullying incidents included tampering with colleagues’ computers and defacing identity cards, Teesside Magistrates Court heard.
The unnamed employee returned to work and complained that his seniors, including Ms Hand, had not taken his complaints of bullying seriously. In total, seven employees were dismissed following the event, including Mr Potter, his attacker and Ms Hand. The latter was deemed by the company to have failed to take the necessary measures to deal with bullying, which breached EE’s policy.
However, at the employment tribunal, Judge Johnson ruled in Ms Hand’s favour, finding that EE had failed to investigate what impact Hand’s alleged lack of investigation had caused. She was awarded a five-figure sum in compensation.
Judge Johnson told Mobile News: “The tribunal further found that the decision to dismiss the claimant was itself outside the range of reasonable responses, taking into account the claimant’s age, length of service and previous unblemished record.”
An EE statement read: “We take our responsibilities towards our staff very seriously and have robust policies in place that ensure a zero tolerance approach to bullying and harassment in the workplace. We accept the tribunal’s ruling.”