In person For the v Mr Hoyle, Consultant — 2021

The claimant began work as a Retail Sales Advisor in December 2021 on a four-day week and a six-month probationary period. The tribunal accepted that she had a number of absences during probation, including childcare absences and sickness absences. The respondent’s handbook allowed reasonable time off for childcare, and the tribunal found that the return-to-work paperwork and transmission of absence reasons to HR were not completed accurately by the managers responsible.

The claimant was dismissed at a probation review meeting on the basis that her absences were recorded as sickness absences, with only one recorded as childcare. When she challenged the dismissal, HR reviewed the archived paperwork and told her that she had not been processed as a leaver and was invited back to work, with pay for shifts not worked. The tribunal held that the later reinstatement offer meant the contract of employment revived so that, in law, no dismissal remained. It also found, in the alternative, that the decision-maker had acted on sickness absence rather than childcare absence, so the automatic unfair dismissal claim failed.

The indirect discrimination claim under s.19 EqA 2010 also failed. The tribunal held that the absence mapping procedure itself allowed for contingencies such as childcare and that the problem was the inaccurate communication and recording of absence reasons on the forms sent to HR, not a policy or practice that disadvantaged single parents with childcare responsibilities. No award was made.