The next step

The tribunal's ruling

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£340,000 for being called “a pensioner”

Take him out

Mr Gregory (G) began working for PetroTrace Ltd (P) as a leading project geophysicist in September 2017 when he was in his late 50s. Throughout his employment, G had an unblemished employment record.

P is owned by Mr Baranksy (Ba) and is managed on a day-to-day basis by Mr Buxton (Bu). In 2020, like many employers, P experienced a downturn in work due to the pandemic.

Job cutting

In June 2020, Ba queried G’s quality of work with Bu - despite there being no previous concerns or evidence of poor performance. He then criticised G’s personal contribution to an ongoing project.

The following month, Ba sent Bu an email stating that they needed to “sack a few people” . He singled out G and another employee, citing their poor performance and that this could be used as the reason to get rid of them.

Relegation zone

With redundancies in mind, Ba started to assess each member of staff by carrying out a casual appraisal. Following this, Ba documented his belief that G should be placed “in the relegation zone” as he had “done nothing of note” .

Following this, Ba emailed Bu saying that G was “far over 60”…“expensive” …and “not showing good performance” . He also mooted that G probably wasn’t short of money, inferring that redundancy would have less financial impact on him. Bu replied agreeing with all of Ba’s comments.

Made redundant

In August 2020 Ba decided that G was “a pensioner” and a younger person was needed. G was notified of his forthcoming redundancy “due to lack of work coming in” and his redundancy became effective in November 2020.

G then successfully claimed age discrimination , victimisation and unfair dismissal at the tribunal and was awarded over £340,000 in compensation (see The next step ).

Serious errors

P lost the age discrimination claim because: Ba had made derogatory comments about G’s age and he was selected for redundancy based on his age. His dismissal was also unfair because Ba and P had cited non-existent performance issues. The redundancy was no more than a sham exercise.

Tip. Don’t use age as a reason to select or earmark an employee for redundancy. Applying that criterion will always amount to age discrimination, even if the rest of the redundancy process is fair and reasonable.

Tip. Also, an employee’s personal situation and financial circumstances are irrelevant to a redundancy decision, as is their proximity to stereotypical retirement age, and these factors must be completely disregarded.

For the tribunal’s ruling in this case, visit https://www.tips-and-advice.co.uk , Download Zone, year 25, issue 22.