Grievance Appeal Advice Please

Mrs.D

Earlier this year my company announced a restructure. I had been there quite a long time, working in a role that covered ¼ of the country. I live in the middle of my area, so all locations can be reached within 2.5 hours. Under the restructure, the only jobs available were national roles (with national travel) or roles that covered ½ the country. Either way, I was told there would be a much greater amount of travel and overnight stays. I have a young family (children under 5) and my OH works full time. I made it clear that I would not be able to do the level of overnight stays. At the initial meeting, the question was asked about redundancies and the answer was very clearly that there would be no redundancies as there were enough roles for everyone.

Knowing that I had a 3 month notice period and that the new structure would come in in 4 months, I started to look for another job. I was lucky that I found another job (doing roughly what I was doing before, with a similar travel commitment). I handed in my notice and worked very hard throughout. I left the company 1 week before the new structure came in.

During my notice, I enquired several times about my bonus, but was told that it was discretionary and would not be paid. I eventually raised it formally as a grievance, which has not been upheld. The bonus is quite a significant amount of money for my family and I. I’m pretty upset about having being put in a position when I felt I had to leave and the company (that I loved BTW) has just dismissed my grievance. There is now an option to appeal, but I need to state my grounds and this is where I’m a bit unsure. Do I have a case for constructive dismissal? Or redundancy? Or discrimination? If so, how should I word the ground for appeal?

Any advice would be gratefully received. I’m not in a Union, so am doing this alone.

sangie595

Mrs.D wrote: »

Earlier this year my company announced a restructure. I had been there quite a long time, working in a role that covered ¼ of the country. I live in the middle of my area, so all locations can be reached within 2.5 hours. Under the restructure, the only jobs available were national roles (with national travel) or roles that covered ½ the country. Either way, I was told there would be a much greater amount of travel and overnight stays. I have a young family (children under 5) and my OH works full time. I made it clear that I would not be able to do the level of overnight stays. At the initial meeting, the question was asked about redundancies and the answer was very clearly that there would be no redundancies as there were enough roles for everyone.

Knowing that I had a 3 month notice period and that the new structure would come in in 4 months, I started to look for another job. I was lucky that I found another job (doing roughly what I was doing before, with a similar travel commitment). I handed in my notice and worked very hard throughout. I left the company 1 week before the new structure came in.

During my notice, I enquired several times about my bonus, but was told that it was discretionary and would not be paid. I eventually raised it formally as a grievance, which has not been upheld. The bonus is quite a significant amount of money for my family and I. I’m pretty upset about having being put in a position when I felt I had to leave and the company (that I loved BTW) has just dismissed my grievance. There is now an option to appeal, but I need to state my grounds and this is where I’m a bit unsure. Do I have a case for constructive dismissal? Or redundancy? Or discrimination? If so, how should I word the ground for appeal?

Any advice would be gratefully received. I’m not in a Union, so am doing this alone.

Since you resigned to take up other employment, you have no chance of any of the claims that you mention. And probably wouldn't have had one anyway. You weren't dismissed at all - constructively or otherwise; you were not entitled to redundancy because there was a suitable alternative position - and you would have had to make a claim based on an argument that the position wasn't suitable, which you can no longer do because you resigned for another job (and probably would have been weak anyway; and I can see no grounds at all for discrimination.

If the company is correct and the bonus is discretionary, then it is what it is. The only possible grounds of appeal would have to be that it is not discretionary - so how would you go about proving that argument? If you can't, then you have no chance of success.

Undervalued

sangie595 wrote: »

If the company is correct and the bonus is discretionary, then it is what it is. The only possible grounds of appeal would have to be that it is not discretionary - so how would you go about proving that argument? If you can't, then you have no chance of success.

Which is I suppose possible but very, very unusual.

Ozzuk

I was thinking of leaving my role and talked to HR about my bonus (discretionary, paid annually) and was told pretty much the same think, if I had left I wouldn't get anything.