in person For the v Mr Michelle — 2019

The claimant worked as a retail sales manager from 1 September 2014 until her dismissal on 8 September 2017 as part of a country-wide restructuring. Her role was deleted and retail sales managers were pooled, with some employees permitted to apply for newly created area manager roles. The tribunal recorded that the claimant’s unfair dismissal case turned on whether the respondent had fairly applied the redeployment selection process, particularly the presentation assessment used for area manager candidates.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant did not particularly like her, but did not find animosity. It found that the emails of 6 May 2017 were not kind about the claimant, that the support given in relation to the harassment from a former colleague did not amount to the level of support she might have expected, and that these matters supported the conclusion that KW did not particularly like her. However, the tribunal held that this was not determinative and that the real question was whether KW’s feelings unfairly influenced the assessment.

On the evidence about the presentation scoring, the tribunal found that two individuals scored candidates, one of whom was a HR professional and the other the divisional manager who would manage the successful candidates. It was concerned that KS later added to her notes after the claimant asked for them, and that the notes contained an erroneous reference to "Christine", but it accepted the explanation that this was a mistake. It also found that KS had no prior relationship with the claimant, had not spoken to her before the presentation, and was not unduly influenced by KW. The tribunal accepted that there was a moderation meeting, that the scoring was not obviously unfair, and that it was not for the tribunal to substitute its own view for the employer’s assessment.

The claimant also relied on the higher score given to CF and on the treatment of SS, but the tribunal held that SS’s situation was not relevant to the claimant’s case. Taking all matters together, it was not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence of unfairness in the claimant’s presentation assessment. It therefore found that she had not established that she was unfairly not selected for redeployment as an area manager, and her unfair dismissal claim failed. The tribunal added that, if it had been wrong and bad faith had tainted the decision, it would nevertheless have found a 60% Polkey reduction because there was a substantial chance the claimant would have been dismissed in any event.