Manager deception leads to Royal Mail employee receiving £2.3M whistleblowing payout

A long running case between Royal Mail and an employee who left the organisation in 2013 now looks to be settled. The former employee is set to receive a pay out of £2.3m after suffering detrimental treatment following whistleblowing on Ofcom guidance breaches and about how some Royal Mail employees were being paid bonuses.

The employee, Ms Jhuti, had raised concerns (known as “protected disclosures”) regarding improper conduct by colleagues to her line manager. The line manager responded by falsely claiming that Ms Jhuti’s performance was sub-standard. The manager subjected Ms Jhuti to unrealistic performance improvement targets and enforced weekly 1-2-1 review meetings.

Subsequently, an independent manager was asked to conduct a capability hearing to decide whether to dismiss Ms Jhuti. During the process that manager was not provided with evidence about the protected disclosures previously raised by Ms Jhuti. The independent manager used the evidence provided by the line manager and, believing Ms Jhuti to be a poor performer, decided to dismiss her. Ms Jhuti had been unable to attend the disciplinary hearing due to ill-health.

At tribunal it was found that the independent manager had been deceived and manipulated because they had been presented with false evidence.

Learning for employers

This is an unusual case where one manager was deliberately deceived by another manager in order to get an employee removed from the organisation for whistleblowing.

But there are many learning points for employers to consider including:

• Ensure investigations are thorough
• Ensure employees have had the opportunity to state their version of events before reaching a decision to dismiss
• Ensure the manager deciding whether to terminate an employee’s employment has access to all the relevant information including details of any “protected disclosures”, even if the concerns were withdrawn or not fully investigated
• Ensure the hearing manager takes all reasonable steps to check the reliability of the evidence gathered though an investigation
• Where an employee is not well enough to attend a hearing (or investigation in person) they should be given the opportunity to state their case and provide evidence either by phone, video conference call or in writing

Source: Gavin Parrott