Martin v Lifescan Scotland Ltd — 2019

The claimant, Sheena Martin, worked for Lifescan Scotland Ltd as Capex Lead. Her claim was that the respondent made unauthorised deductions from her wages by assessing her 2017 performance unfairly, which in turn affected her annual pay rise and bonus under the discretionary bonus scheme. The tribunal accepted that the relevant contractual and policy framework required performance to be assessed by reference to goals, leadership behaviour and other significant achievements or misses, and that performance ratings were then calibrated across the management group.

The tribunal found that although the claimant met all of her 2017 "What" goals, Mr Donald reasonably concluded that her overall performance lacked proactivity because she had not introduced a capital expenditure process for project managers, despite being told in July 2017 that this was needed. The tribunal accepted that she continued to spend time doing project managers' capital expenditure work for them, which it found was a significant miss and had adverse consequences for the business. It also accepted that her goals were not especially stretching when compared with others in the calibration group.

The tribunal further found that Mr Donald acted reasonably and in good faith in reaching the rating of Partially Meets for the "What" element and Fully Meets for the "How" element, after taking account of his own observations, feedback from senior managers and the calibration exercise with Mr McIntosh and Mr Lawless. It held that applying the recommended distribution curve to a group of 48 employees was reasonable in the circumstances, and that the claimant's requested training would not have altered the performance concerns identified.

On that basis, the tribunal held that the respondent had acted honestly and in good faith in assessing the claimant's 2017 performance and in allocating the resulting pay rise and bonus. It found that the respondent did not make unauthorised deductions from wages, so the claim was dismissed. The claimant's recorded 2017 award was a pay rise of £800, taking salary to £50,600, and a bonus of £3,600, but no monetary remedy was awarded by the tribunal.