A mortgage and protection advice firm plans to appeal after an employment tribunal awarded more than £23,000 to an adviser for being fired after she claimed her 48 hour or more working week was “stressing” her out.
The Cambridge employment tribunal heard Helen McMahon worked for Rickmansworth-based Heron Financial Limited between 19 June 2017 and 4 June 2019 as a new build and mortgage protection adviser.
In her role, McMahon initially covered the Chilterns which included Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire but more recently also spent time in the South East region including the Isle of Sheppey and Kent.
She would go to sites and meet clients viewing show homes on the new developments – spending a lot of time at one particular developer’s site in Benson South Oxfordshire.
The tribunal heard she worked long hours including travelling to site, spending time in the evenings returning calls and paperwork and she also worked weekends. If she was on a site she could work as much as a 12 hours day without a lunch break including the travel time – although there were days when this was not the case.
Exceeding 48 hour working week
McMahon told bosses that she was working more than 48 hours a week, having not signed an opt-out, that this was stressing her out and that she wanted somehow to reduce her hours.
But the tribunal heard that her bosses felt that she was “moaning” as she was “always moaning”.
In May 2019, McMahon took time off sick from 16 May 2020 until her return to the office on 30 May 2020.
It was at this point she attended a meeting with her boss where she discussed her working hours and the reduced salary and commission she received in the May 2019 payslip she had received while off sick.
The tribunal heard that on 4 June, McMahon was dismissed summarily without due process.
McMahon claimed that she was sacked due to raising concerns about her working hours, while her bosses cited the reason as concerns about her performance. This was in spite of McMahon’s claim that she had previously been awarded a bottle of champagne for having one of the highest conversion rates in the company.
Employment Judge King said McMahon had established in the absence of any other credible reason that her dismissal was because she was moaning about her statutory rights and this was the principal reason for her dismissal.
McMahon was awarded £839.22 in respect of unlawful deductions from wages and wrongful dismissal and £22,288.71 for unfair dismissal and unlawful deductions of wages.
When contacted by Health & Protection, a spokesperson for Heron Financial said: “We’re awaiting a date for the appeal hearing and so it would not be appropriate for us to make any further comment at this stage.”