A 61-year-old account manager was unfairly constructively dismissed after being put on a performance improvement plan without warning, but the majority of the Tribunal concluded there was no age discrimination.
Facts
Mrs Dadhania (a 61-year-old female account manager of Indian origin) claimed that she had been unfairly constructively dismissed by a global software developer and discriminated against based on her age, race, and sex. She had worked as an account manager for over 4 years between 2016 and 2019. She reached only 11% of her targets in the first quarter of 2019 and was placed on a performance improvement plan (PIP). Her performance picked up and was assessed as satisfactory at the end of the year. In 2020, however, she was placed on a PIP again and a number of her accounts were transferred to younger white men. She submitted a grievance, which was not upheld, and then resigned.
Decision
The Tribunal disagreed that Mrs Dadhania had been micromanaged or treated aggressively. The Tribunal did, however, conclude that she had been unfairly constructively dismissed by being placed on a PIP with no prior informal discussions. The employer’s policy was to resolve performance issues informally through discussions and expectation-setting before moving to a PIP. There was no good reason for failing to apply that policy in this case. Mrs Dadhania had previously succeeded in improving her performance. The employer had also failed to adequately investigate Mrs Dadhania’s grievance. The majority of the Tribunal concluded, however, that there was no discrimination and that the employer had moved the accounts only to maximise the chances of securing a deal. The minority view was that the way in which the employer addressed the performance issues left open the possibility of discrimination, and that the fact of Mrs Dadhania being a 61-year-old Indian woman had potentially subconsciously resulted in the view that she was less likely to close the deals. As this was the view of just one out of the three Tribunal panel members, however, the claims of discrimination were dismissed.
The judgment is available here
Dadhania v SAP (UK) Ltd, case number 3307319/2020, 19 January 2023