Former postal employee wins £6,000 for unfair dismissal

Tuesday 12 March 2019

A former postal employee has won more than £6,000 in compensation after the Employment and Discrimination Tribunal found that he had been unfairly dismissed by Jersey Post.

Following a final hearing lasting more than a day-and-a-half, the tribunal upheld Christopher Gould’s complaint that Jersey Post was wrong to dismiss him even though it had made efforts to help him combat sickness and absence from work.

The Tribunal’s Deputy Chairman Advocate Ian Jones accepted that Jersey Post had made genuine efforts to help Mr Gould but he found that its failure to engage with an occupational health specialist, as required by its own attendance policy, meant that his subsequent dismissal was unreasonable.

Advocate Jones accepted that Jersey Post had no wish to dismiss Mr Gould and had taken steps to try to help him but he found that Mr Gould’s difficulty explaining his behaviour was misunderstood by his employer.

Pictured: The Tribunal’s Deputy Chairman, Advocate Ian Jones, said Mr Gould’s difficulty explaining his behaviour was misunderstood by his employer.

He said that on the basis of the evidence he had heard about the way Mr Gould engaged with Jersey Post, the latter could be forgiven "for forming the view that [Mr Gould] did in fact have such an attitude problem."

Advocate Jones said: “I was not unsympathetic to the position of the Respondent who found itself having to deal with an employee who was simply not addressing the issue of his poor attendance (which was fundamental to his employment) notwithstanding the processes engaged by his employer.

"He had numerous opportunities to explain his issues and difficulties from his own perspective but on any analysis did not.”

Pictured: The Tribunal concluded that Jersey Post had not followed their attendance policy.

Jersey Post told the Tribunal they believed they had taken all reasonable steps to try to avoid dismissing Mr Gould but it transpired that they had not followed their attendance policy when they failed to involve an occupational health specialist.

Although they argued that this would not have affected the decision to dismiss Mr Gould, the Tribunal decided that, in a case where misunderstanding between the parties was a key element, it was possible that such expertise would have resulted in a different outcome.

Consequently, the tribunal upheld Mr Gould’s claim and awarded him £6,036.81, the equivalent of 26 weeks’ pay less 25% to take account of Mr Gould’s failure to engage fully with his employer.