A better summary of the ruling is that "Companies must follow their own procedures".
You can't fire someone without process. The ruling is that this wasn't "gross misconduct", and proper procedure for dealing with the behaviour should have been followed.
So before someone comes in claiming the UK to be an unruly anarchy, if you go around dissing the boss or your company then you'll still find yourself facing disciplinary action and could be eventually sacked, just not on the spot!
nness · 1d ago
What is of note is that you cannot typically claim unfair dismissal if you've been employed for less than 2-years in the UK. Seems she was employed more than 2-years and passed the qualifying period. Proves if you plan to run a business and hire employees, you got to understand the protections in place.
fmbb · 1d ago
If you plan to run a business I hope you take it seriously enough to not fire anyone that hurts your feelings.
bgirard · 1d ago
> hurts your feelings
Let's not trivialize verbal abuse by calling it hurt feelings.
fkyoureadthedoc · 1d ago
Let's not trivialize upending someone's entire life because they hurt your feelings.
integralid · 1d ago
"Let's not trivialize firing someone because they (verbally) abused someone"? Are you OK with mobbing in the workplace? They may be "just words" but the can actually have a huge mental negative effect on someone, especially if sustained.
I'm not saying this level of seriousness is what happened here, but you exaggerate in the other direction.
latchup · 1d ago
As with all forms of verbal abuse, the presence of a power imbalance is paramount. And since we abolished slavery, it is about as high as it gets here.
What an employee says about their boss generally has zero implications on their career and lives, so long as it does not outright accuse them of a crime. When's the last time someone called you to provide a reference on your boss? I thought so.
In turn, what a boss says about their employees can be entirely career-ending and therefore life-altering, even if said in jest or later retracted. A higher standard exists precisely because the stakes are so much higher.
bgirard · 1d ago
We shouldn't tolerate verbal abuse to avoid upending the life of the abuser.
fkyoureadthedoc · 1d ago
Yes, adopt the language of therapists to add some gravitas. Sorry, but getting called an asshole/dickhead/whatever (especially if it's true) is not abuse in this context. Even less so given the power imbalance between the employee and the employer.
dgfitz · 1d ago
In a strange plot twist, calling trivial things “abuse” is what actually trivializes abuse.
wizzwizz4 · 1d ago
I'd say that making such determinations based on fragmentary information, such as decontextualised headlines, is a better characterisation. Arguments like these (where some people say "it's abuse!" and others say "it's not abuse!", and nobody focuses on how they're not using the same "it") make the lines seem blurred when actually, it's pretty clear-cut most of the time.
Even if you know the lines aren't blurred, if you perceive others acting as though it's up for debate, you're more likely to consider bad-faith appeals to the subjectivity of abuse as perhaps being in good faith. Few among us are philosophers capable of reasoning everything through from first principles, all the time, so these things matter.
dgfitz · 22h ago
Sure, I agree with all that, well-said. “Dickhead, asshole, douchebag, fuckstain” are terms of endearment in some of my social circles. Context matters.
Tone and body language are like 80%+ of in-person, verbal communication.
We need to be very careful to, as I mentioned, not “abuse” the term abuse to the point where it becomes meaningless. If everything is abuse, nothing is abuse, and we need to invent a new term.
stuaxo · 23h ago
In the article they point out she said it once and it wasn't part of a pattern.
forgetfreeman · 1d ago
Someone calling names is pretty trivial though, literally the behavior of schoolyard children, and it certainly should take more than that to rattle an adult.
cactusplant7374 · 1d ago
Calling others names shows a total lack of self-control and disrespect towards others. It's toxic in personal relationships too. If my boss called me names I would rm -rf my hard drive and walk out immediately. I have too much self respect to deal with that.
ceejayoz · 5h ago
> Calling others names shows a total lack of self-control and disrespect towards others.
As does some of the conduct that may lead to the counterparty calling you names in the heat of the moment.
GJim · 10h ago
Frankly, if you can't give and take the piss, you wouldn't last five minutes in a British workplace.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, and find people who do take themselves seriously worthy of some extra piss taking to bring them down a peg.
(Oh, and rm -rf'ing your HD *would* land you in very serious legal trouble. It is a criminal act under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. And rightly so.)
skygazer · 1d ago
Does the UK have above average just-shy-of-two-years turnover? Seems there might be a small incentive to let people go before that threshold.
munk-a · 1d ago
Not from what I've seen - that small incentive is usually outweighed by the immense burden of retraining and finding a good candidate.
It's similar to probationary periods - you'll see a few people fired right at the three month mark but it's usually more of a case of giving that employee grace for the probationary period rather than accelerating a firing that'd happen later.
113 · 1d ago
I've definitely known places to find ways to get rid of staff before 2 years are up but they tend to be hospitality jobs.
rich_sasha · 1d ago
I believe the accrual is in practice gradual. E.g. 103 weeks in, the tribunal would basically give you the same rights as full 2 years in. 1.5 year in, they will give you some of them, etc.
tialaramex · 1d ago
No, several of these are hard cut-offs. So, 103 weeks isn't two years, you can't be unfairly dismissed under the terms of this law. In this case I believe the relevant paragraph of legislation is:
"Section 94 does not apply to the dismissal of an employee unless he has been continuously employed for a period of not less than two years ending with the effective date of termination"
Section 94 is the name of a section of the current law regarding the general idea of like, employing people, and that section says you can't unfairly dismiss them, so this sub-sub clause says that only applies after two years.
Edited to add: This stuff is easier to find in the UK because although it's legalese, the Westminster Parliament is obliged by its own rules to name laws after what they do, this is an employment law so I searched for "Employment". In the US it might be called the NICEHAT Act or Jim Smith's Law or some other useless nonsense because they have no such rule.
rich_sasha · 23h ago
This is the letter of the law. But I have been advised in the past that in practice, if reviewing a case, the tribunal is likely to see the accrual as gradual. So if you fire someone a week before their two years are up, they may well decide it was unfair.
tialaramex · 1d ago
At the very bottom yeah. There's some level of abuse of employment rules and such for low paid work, particularly at larger outfits. Sometimes it's outright criminal and these people are least able to advocate for their own rights.
Persuading the tax man that the cleaners who in effect are your direct employees are "freelance" somehow and so you shouldn't have to pay the tax. Or claiming that the labourers you hired don't get paid from 0830 because they aren't "really" working until 0900 even though they're in a company minibus being driven to the worksite and this is the only way they could get there.
Neither of those things is legal here but both of them might happen and will only sometimes get reported and those responsible will get at worst a fine. If you tried anything like this shit with Sam who has a penthouse office in the City he'll summon a swarm of employment lawyers and ruin your life, but because Mateusz who cleans the toilets has dubious immigration status and he's behind on his rent he's probably not going to make a fuss when you steal from him this way. This sucks.
The problems are always at the very bottom. People who are closest to the poverty line, most easily replaceable, least easily able to organize and demand better and also most separated from those who have more freedom to demand change. One important angle unions think about is schemes to separate these low wages workers from colleagues who would be able to advocate for improvements. If the guy cleaning the toilets doesn't legally work for the same company as the guy who uses them, suddenly the question of whether "cleaning toilets" pays a living wage isn't a matter of employee solidarity...
Edited: Swapped Manhattan for the City (of London) because the topic is specifically UK employment
hungmung · 1d ago
In America we like to fire anyone right before they get a chance to collect on any retirement benefits.
cactusplant7374 · 1d ago
I have never worked at a job that had those kind of benefits.
hungmung · 1d ago
They never existed if nobody ever gets to collect on them.
rich_sasha · 1d ago
You still can if you can show you were unfairly discriminated against, for example in racial, ethnic, religious or gender basis. In case of pregnant women, this is so strong that in fact the employer may need to prove they are not discriminating.
bryanrasmussen · 1d ago
so if the company had a rule you are not allowed to swear at anyone and may be summarily fired it would be ok? What are the requirements of process?
beardyw · 1d ago
It all hangs on "reasonableness" for which there is no legal definition. Generally if there is no lasting harm (like setting fire to the office) then there is a process like a three strikes rule in which the employee is given a chance to mend their ways (like not swearing).
d1sxeyes · 1d ago
No, it's not just that—even if the company's policies said so, they still might have been found to have unlawfully dismissed her...
Anyway, main point is that points 129 and 130 basically say 'you can't dismiss someone for calling their boss a dickhead', and then 134-136 say 'and even your own guidelines say so'.
ceejayoz · 1d ago
Points 129 and 130 basically say 'you can't dismiss someone for calling their boss a dickhead ONCE'. Which seems fairly reasonable.
otterley · 1d ago
"On the facts of this case" is a load-bearing clause. This finding does not have the force of law.
acoard · 1d ago
It's completely unreasonable. Calling someone a dickhead in any professional environment is unprofessional and should be grounds for dismissal.
Should bosses also get one free insult for their employees too? Obviously not.
lostlogin · 1d ago
Context matters, what profession you’re in matters, what the power imbalance is matters. Who the person is and what they are like matters and the situation does too.
A workplace where no one swears, ever, sounds shit.
Lanolderen · 1d ago
Depends on where you want to draw the line.. I definitely prefer teams where you don't have to play oral minesweeper all day. It just results in everyone being obviously two faced.. If I do something very stupid, it's fine to snap and call me a dickhead, as long as we keep getting along the other 99% of the time. It's even fine to do it lovingly when I'm doing minor stupid activities. Of course there are limits but for me it's very far from 'do it once and I'm running to HR'
ryandrake · 1d ago
Maybe I'm just extremely lucky with my coworkers, but I've been working for 25+ years, and it's never occurred to me to call a co-worker a dickhead. It really should not be that hard to keep it professional and avoid insulting people.
"Not calling someone a dickhead" should not take constant cognitive load or feel like "playing minesweeper" all day.
sensanaty · 23h ago
Might just be 'cause I'm Serbian (we swear a lot, and the swearing tends to be very vulgar) and also grew up surrounded by Aussies, Kiwis, Brits and Irishmen, but to me "dickhead" barely registers as an insult or even all that unprofessional. I obviously wouldn't go around calling just about anyone a dickhead unprovoked, but I've been a part of plenty of teams where we talk to each other along those lines. Hell, I've had my fair share of "Cunt"s thrown around too. Obviously there's a cultural element at play here though, so what might be okay for me won't be for someone else.
That said I really don't think something like this warrants dismissal, unless it's a frequent problem. Obviously we shouldn't be going around and insulting each other for no reason, but are bosses really so fragile that they can't deal with a single instance of their subordinates being sorta mean to them and calling them names?
DonHopkins · 22h ago
I worked at a public company in the Netherlands (TomTom) that employs many people from different countries and cultures, and many LGBTQ+ people as well.
In all earnestness, without any malice, my American friend (who I'd worked with before and at TomTom) asked a group of co-workers if anybody wanted to be his guinea pig for some new software, and boy that didn't over well with the Italian guy! He profusely apologized and explained what he really meant by the term "my guinea pig", and things were just fine, plus he learned not to call Italians "guinea pigs" (with either the hard or soft "g").
That same friend eventually left the company for a much better offer, but later TomTom rehired him with a huge promotion and pay raise because they really loved his work and desperately needed him, and he was irreplaceable. He was rehired and promoted to CTO, and finally he was having dinner with a bunch of the TomTom founders and executives, including the CMO Corinne Vigreux and her husband the CEO Harold Goddijn.
Then Corinne Vigreux said something blatantly transphobic, which she obviously meant as a slur (unlike his "guinea pig" faux pas that he immediately apologized for), so he called her on it, and she would not take it back or apologize, and that incident led to him suddenly leaving the company.
That was after TomTom spent huge amounts of money to initially recruit, then later rehire and retain him, he designed and implemented key parts of their infrastructure, and they even prominently featured him in many of their recruiting videos and magazine articles and LinkedIn posts, saying how much he liked working there -- many of them are still online at TomTom's recruiting web site!
But thanks to the inherent power imbalance, her executive level privilege, and the nepotistic advantage of being married to the CEO, she got away with it scott free, and they hushed up the reason he left).
He lost his dream job, and everyone else was left wondering why he suddenly disappeared for no apparent reason, after being so pleasant to work with, performing so well, and being so frequently exploited as a recruiting spokesperson, and interviewed as a representative of the company. (I am not exaggerating that if you google tomtom + his name you get pages of unique interviews and articles over many years.)
Corinne Vigreux drove him out of his job for speaking out against her intentional slur, when she clearly said and meant it in front of several other people, when she's the one who should have been reported to HR and punished for what she said, not him.
Over many years, TomTom spent a LOT of money recruiting, relocating, then re-recruiting him, they loved his work. I originally recruited him by introducing and recommending him to executives, managers, and HR. I still have the enthusiastic emails I sent with and about him, which they acted on by giving him an offer he couldn't refuse and relocating him. I never got any recruiting bonus, since I was a contractor at the time I recruited him. I just wanted the opportunity to work with him again, and cherished the opportunity to get the old band back together in Amsterdam.
The manager I recommended him to, who hired him and worked closely with him, was shocked and dismayed to hear about the actual reason he suddenly left. Especially because the company culture as a whole is definitely not transphobic, and I know current employees with trans children who were also quite shocked to hear about Corinne Vigreux's bigotry. TomTom certainly gives a lot of lip service to inclusivity on their web site.
Introducing the LGBTQIA+ Committee: How TomTom is empowering inclusive action:
But after the derogatory transphobic bullshit Corinne Vigreux said in front of witnesses, which was clearly in violation of company policy, culture, scientific facts, and just plain human decency, I believe she morally owes TomTom a refund of all the money they spent recruiting and relocating and hiring him twice, as well as all the money they had to spend replacing him.
Because she can CERTAINLY afford it. She might even learn to keep her bigoted mouth shut and transphobic opinions to herself, or grow some thicker skin if she can't bring herself to be do that, merely being polite and respectful to her own employees, instead of being bigoted and vengeful. And not to be so blatant about taking advantage of her nepotism and exploiting the power imbalance and her husband.
Not just because of all of TomTom's money and reputation she burnt at the altar of her ugly bigoted vanity, but because of how difficult her bigotry and nepotism make it for TomTom to recruit and retain good people: a problem she recognizes and publicly talks about herself. The transphobia's one thing, but losing high level talented employees because they stand up to transphobia or any kind of bigotry is much more systemically worse, and should be actionable by HR.
>In fact, she thinks, the lack of talented staff is “the biggest issue most organisations are facing. You have to fish in a bigger pond to fill those gaps. So of course you should look at women too”.
Apparently not trans women, nor people who stand up to her transphobic bigotry either.
TomTom certainly hasn't been doing well under HER leadership (just google the ill-fated sports watches and "TomTom Bandit" that you've probably never heard of -- maybe the product name was too honest about the cost of its subscription service).
But being married to the CEO has its nepotistic advantages, like being able to say whatever she wants in front of everyone, and then get rid of anyone who has the guts to stand up to her and call her out on her bigotry.
michtzik · 16h ago
What did she say?
huimang · 1d ago
Of course it depends on the context, but firing someone over one offense of calling someone a dickhead is quite reactionary and punitive. Grow up. Sometimes people say things they regret in the moment, it doesn't mean someone and potentially their family should be affected. This is why you have policies, writeups and whatnot. Not jumping at the chance to fire someone.
dgacmu · 1d ago
People grow and learn and one of your primary jobs as a manager is to help them do so. We're all human and mess up - one dickhead seems like a cause for a warning. Multiple dickheads suggest someone isn't learning, and _that_ is a good reason to fire them.
> Calling someone a dickhead in any professional environment is unprofessional
The fuck it is. There is a while bunch of preconditions that need to be met first. (for example, if you're working as a teacher, its probably unproffesh, but as an engineer[a real one, not a software engineer], you need to call a spade a spade.)
You can't have "professionalism" as a mask to allow abuse or general degrading treatment at work.
crucially the person in question used dickheads non-pejoratively, it wasn't an insult. However the employer didn't follow procedure either.
HappyPanacea · 1d ago
This is highly dependent on culture
wulfstan · 1d ago
In Australia this would be considered normal office conversation.
sefrost · 1d ago
I started my career in the UK around 2010 and it could have been normal banter at that point but I feel workplace relationships have generally become more corporate and risk-averse since then and it wouldn't be acceptable in most office environments anymore. I suppose everyone will have a different experience.
GJim · 23h ago
Everyone certainly does have a different perspective.
Personally, I've never worked anywhere in Blighty where giving and accepting piss taking and creative insults isn't the norm. Anybody offended by this will be politely told to develop a sense of humour (of the type spelt with a 'u').
ceejayoz · 1d ago
> Should bosses also get one free insult for their employees too? Obviously not.
If their employment contract requires it, sure. This worker's contract guaranteed them a warning in this scenario. They are protected by that legally binding contract. That's the entire point of it.
Even outside a contract, consequences for actions should be proportional to the harm of those actions. "You called me a mild insult in the heat of the moment after years of productive employment, so I'm removing your livelihood" is not.
jameshart · 1d ago
I feel like it should also at least have some material bearing on the judgement if the boss is, in fact, a dickhead.
masfuerte · 1d ago
The instant dismissal provides some strong evidence on that question.
scott_w · 1d ago
> No, it's not just that—even if the company's policies said so, they still might have been found to have unlawfully dismissed her...
The sections you quoted don't support this statement. The quoted statements highlight contractual clauses which include "excessive" foul language which one instance of calling someone a dickhead does not approach. The only point a single instance of swearing could be grounds for dismissal were against a customer, which is specifically highlighted in the contract.
Were the contract to include a clause of "you will not swear at other employees," then that would have been sufficient. Now, whether that falls foul of the Equality Act (due to discriminatory treatment) is a different question. You can't extrapolate any result of that from this case, however.
d1sxeyes · 1d ago
128 covers whether it was in line with the company’s processes or not.
It’s actually not against the Equality Act to treat employees differently, as long as you don’t do it because of a protected characteristic.
gowld · 1d ago
> Further, whilst not determinative in itself of whether or not the dismissal was
unfair, this one off comment did not amount to gross misconduct or misconduct
so serious to justify summary dismissal for reasons that I have provided above.
That part of the ruling is independent of the company policies.
IshKebab · 1d ago
Right but isn't the point that you can be fairly dismissed for things other than gross misconduct?
scott_w · 1d ago
Yes, poor performance could be one. Breach of contract is another, for example, doing something counter to your job. This is different from gross misconduct, as gross misconduct doesn't have to be enumerated in your contract. For example, punching your colleague is both illegal and will likely get you fired for gross misconduct. My contract doesn't have a clause that says "don't assault your colleagues."
d1sxeyes · 1d ago
Yep. But generally not instant dismissal.
Although apparently they did actually try to pay her for her notice period and she sent it back? This case is a whole load of fun to read through.
bombcar · 1d ago
A quick update to the procedures that calling someone a dickhead is a fireable offense is all that is needed.
You might even be able to have something generic like "verbal abuse" but then you have to be careful that it might be turned on the bosses and cause another type of lawsuit.
Aurornis · 1d ago
HR and legal across the UK are probably updating their company procedures right now to include every imaginable reason they might want to fire someone.
That’s why I don’t see these rulings as a win for the common employee. The situation now encourages companies to be as broad as possible with their contracts and policies and include so many just-in-case provisions that it starts to get hard for anyone to know and follow all of them.
scott_w · 1d ago
> HR and legal across the UK are probably updating their company procedures right now to include every imaginable reason they might want to fire someone.
No, they aren't because that's not how contracts or the law work in the UK. The court found that the contract enumerated a long list of breaches of contract, of which "swearing at colleagues" was not in that list. This means the court read the list as exhaustive, because it appeared to be exhaustive.
If the contract was worded differently, the court may not have used this interpretive rule. If the wording was a little more broad, the court may have worked to determine whether "swearing at your boss" could reasonably fit into the terms.
_benedict · 1d ago
No, the ruling expressly refers to the list as non exhaustive, but given the other related references to misconduct (including the use of inappropriate language) it was not reasonable to infer that this example was gross misconduct.
Aurornis · 1d ago
> No, they aren't because that's not how contracts or the law work in the UK. The court found that the contract enumerated a long list of breaches of contract, of which "swearing at colleagues" was not in that list. This means the court read the list as exhaustive, because it appeared to be exhaustive.
Yes, and that's why I said HR and Legal are updating their boilerplate to be more exhaustive.
toomuchtodo · 1d ago
UK companies are not going to be able to out engineer UK labor protections to arrive at the US' at will experience. Such is the point of labor laws and protections. They can update the procedures, they'll still end up in court or tribunals. This is not the US (thankfully).
Aurornis · 1d ago
Obviously contracts can't override labor laws
I'm saying they're going to update the contracts to match the labor laws.
If the labor laws say you have to have fireable offenses explicitly enumerated, contracts will now have a lot of fireable offenses explicitly enumerated. That's not evading the law, that's literally how you comply with the law.
ceejayoz · 1d ago
> If the labor laws say you have to have fireable offenses explicitly enumerated...
They don't, nor does this decision.
The company simply didn't follow the rules of the employment contract, which both parties had agreed to.
scott_w · 1d ago
> I'm saying they're going to update the contracts to match the labor laws.
No they're not. This ruling makes no difference to the legal, employment or contractual landscape of the UK. Reading the ruling, it was resolved in exactly the way any competent HR lawyer would expect. The employer was bang out of order and was rightly slapped down by the court.
> If the labor laws say you have to have fireable offenses explicitly enumerated
No they don't. As others have pointed out: the ruling flags that the contract itself enumerates gross misconduct offences. Some of which include "excessive swearing" or "swearing at customers." Given the context of what the contract does enumerate, the court found that the contract does not consider this, obviously, lesser misconduct was out of scope of gross misconduct, as per the terms of the contract.
If the contract did not include such a specific list, but merely described a more broad category of things that are considered gross misconduct, then the court might have ruled differently.
Twirrim · 1d ago
Based on conversations with a relative in HR in the UK, usually the company procedures are detailed and cover everything. You just have to follow the procedure. Most of the pain they ever had to deal with has come down to managers etc. acting off the cuff, not following the documented process.
tialaramex · 1d ago
> HR and legal across the UK are probably updating their company procedures right now to include every imaginable reason they might want to fire someone.
If you want to fire someone you follow procedure. In this case they didn't follow procedure. This is exactly the sort of situation HR already despairs over.
Writing new HR documents can't fix this, the same way that bolding the text "Do not press this button" in the instruction manual will not stop customers who don't read the manual and then press the button from doing so.
This also just obviously isn't gross misconduct. So now your rewritten procedures might get you sued which (checks notes) is the opposite of what you wanted.
ceejayoz · 1d ago
They'd best be prepared to enforce it evenly, then, or the next suit is "my boss called me a dickhead 43 times without any consequences, and that's discriminatory".
Aurornis · 1d ago
Which is another loss for the common employee, because now if you mistakenly violate one of those voluminous company policies or you're having a bad day and make a small lapse of judgment, they're going to feel obligated to punish you for it to avoid more legal infractions.
ceejayoz · 1d ago
Or, as said rules also apply to the boss, they might feel obligated to be a bit more reasonable.
In this case, all they had to do was issue a warning - as they promosed to do in the contract - instead of a summary firing for the first offense. If the behavior reoccurred they'd have been clear.
wredcoll · 23h ago
This is a terribly bad faith argument.
We're literally reading an example of someone being protected by laws and your response is "well this is actually bad for them"?
KaiserPro · 1d ago
> broad as possible with their contracts
have you read any of your company's policys recently?
at one company I could be technically fired for wearing a tracksuit to work.
at a FAANG, one that was very famous for upholding "freedom of expression", could fire me for questioning _in private_ the direction of anyone more senior than me.
Even if those policies are broad and all encompassing, you still need to demonstrate that they were applied correctly, proportionally and reasonably.
You also need to prove that the _policy_ is reasonable as well.
for example you _could_ have a policy where you cannot say anything negative. Good luck trying to prove that its legally reasonable (and that it was applied evenly)
tempfile · 1d ago
Doesn't every win for the common employee encourage companies to be as broad as possible? What would count as a "real win" by your standard?
crote · 1d ago
> You might even be able to have something generic like "verbal abuse"
That's just going to lead to a lawsuit on the definition of "verbal abuse".
> A quick update to the procedures that calling someone a dickhead is a fireable offense is all that is needed.
Even specifically stating that might not work. It is not uncommon for such clauses to be struck through in court if they are deemed unfair and disproportionally punitive to the employee.
For a regular office drone otherwise in good standing, given the UK's cultural context, getting fired for calling your boss a "dickhead" is an extremely harsh punishment. An official warning, improvement plan, or some kind of training would be more appropriate.
jrockway · 1d ago
From the article:
> However, this required she be given a prior warning. Only more serious breaches such as “threatening and intimidating language” would be gross misconduct and warrant summary dismissal.
It seems like the prior warning is the necessary part. The company obviously wants to write the rules such that the upper management team can make a one-off stupid comment to an employee without the employee suing to get them fired. Unfortunately, this means the upper management team can't rage-fire someone with no thought. (No doubt to show how in charge and powerful they are, which kind of proves the person using the term "dickhead" right.)
KaiserPro · 1d ago
> A quick update to the procedures that calling someone a dickhead is a fireable offense is all that is needed.
Nope, needs to be reasonable. If you're doing something unusual, then it needs to be telegraphed and backed up so that if you are taken to court you can give evidence as to why that clause was needed.
> have something generic like "verbal abuse"
you would need to have a policy that defines what verbal abuse is, and a way to record and catagorise it. its also a hard task to prove that one instance of verbal abuse where using "dickhead" as a term of endearment without any other connotations (sexual or otherwise) is gross misconduct, especially as the reply was "you can fuck off"
isodev · 1d ago
Is calling a colleague dickhead really “verbal abuse”, though?
I think trying to fire someone based on that rather than addressing whatever conflict or friction lead to the “name calling” is an example of bad management.
toast0 · 1d ago
No, dickhead is a noun; nounal abuse is tolerated.
Telling someone to fuck off could be verbal abuse, as fuck is a verb. But in this case it was not the purely figurative suggestion to fuck off was the britishism meaning to please leave with haste.
gowld · 1d ago
"is" is an intransitive linking verb.
Saying "You're a dickhead" is verbal abuse. Saying "Dickhead" alone is nounal abuse.
WesolyKubeczek · 1d ago
“So, my corpus-cavernosum-for-brain boss…”
s1artibartfast · 1d ago
And why do companies have to follow their process without deviation?
The ruling holds that business process is not only legally binding, but trump's the terms for dismissal in the employment contract.
ceejayoz · 1d ago
> The ruling holds that business process is not only legally binding, but trump's the terms for dismissal in the employment contract.
No, it doesn't. The business process was part of the legally binding contract.
> The hearing was told that under the terms of her contract, she could be fired for “the provocative use of insulting or abusive language”. However, this required she be given a prior warning. Only more serious breaches such as “threatening and intimidating language” would be gross misconduct and warrant summary dismissal.
s1artibartfast · 1d ago
My reading of the article was that the former was stated in the contract, and the latter was the judicial finding. In retrospect,I suppose this is unclear from the article.
ceejayoz · 1d ago
That's not my reading of it, but to remove all doubt, the judicial finding details the employment contract.
> Section 15 and 16 of the contract deal with disciplinary rules and unsatisfactory
work and misconduct. Sections 18, 19 and 20 specify the respondent’s
disciplinary procedures. Section 21 details the appeals procedure. The
grievance procedure and grievance appeal procedure are laid out at section 22.
> At section 16 there is a list of the type of conduct or unsatisfactory work that
may lead to dismissal after a prior warning has been given. There is a non
exhaustive list of examples which include negligence, carelessness or general
lack of capability in performance of the employees duties, bad timekeeping and
the provocative use of insulting or abusive language.
arethuza · 1d ago
Because employees in the UK generally have contracts of employment that both parties have to follow?
jameshart · 1d ago
Because process is what ensures that people subject to the same contract terms all receive equal and fair treatment.
You fire one person for calling their boss a dickhead, you’d better be sure you never allowed someone on the same contract to call their boss a dickhead without being fired.
gowld · 1d ago
That's not true. Firing is an option, not an obligation.
Forgiving a fireable offense in one case doesn't mean every case must be forgiven.
BenFranklin100 · 1d ago
While that may be true in the UK, most US states are employee-at-will states. There doesn’t need to be a reason.
moomin · 1d ago
Ok, but that’s more of an argument that the US is an unruly anarchy.
BenFranklin100 · 1d ago
The United States is far from an anarchy. There are a huge number of regulations governing employer-employee relationships.
The topic is flexibility in hiring/ firing decisions and whether this flexibility is a good or bad thing overall. The empirical data between US and Europe - where the US has much higher wages and generally lower unemployment - suggests but does not prove this flexibility contributes to a better overall job market. In the US employers may be quicker to fire you, but they are also quicker to hire you.
Personally, as an employee I like the flexibility. If I do a good job, it’s rare to get fired, and I have more ability to jump ship if don’t like my current job.
sensanaty · 23h ago
> and I have more ability to jump ship if don’t like my current job.
This is a complete non-issue in presumably the entire EU (I can only speak for the Netherlands personally, but it's a safe bet except for perhaps Germany)? You can't get fired for literally no reason like in the US, but you can terminate your contract at any time you want with usually 1 month notice. I've literally never encountered any job where it was more than 1 month's notice unless they were very, very high up the food chain like Principal Engineer or VP level, and at that level it's presumably similarly difficult to leave even in the US.
I've actually just quit my job at the start of this month, and I had 16 paid vacation days leftover, so I'll be working for less than half the month before starting my next role. Sure seems like a lot of ability to jump ship to me.
And getting hired hasn't felt harder or more complicated for me than my experience for US companies. Interview processes are the same, you get hired ASAP with companies understanding there's notice periods before you can start working, For the businesses there's a 1-3 month probationary period where you can be let go (most common is 1 month) for no reason, and it's also not like it's impossible to get rid of truly bad performers either, there's just rules in place to make sure companies don't fuck over their employee's lives on a whim. They have to actually prove someone is a detriment to the team, shock horror, in order to fire them.
The alternative in the US for the majority of people not working in big tech for big tech salaries is that the fear of getting fired at any moment in time constantly looms over your head. You're always 1 power-trip away from getting fired by some egotistical dickhead, on top of already having much poorer worker protections, not to mention the state of US healthcare and the fear people have there.
Me? I have a permanent contract and can live safely in the knowledge that if they want to get rid of me unfairly, it'll cost them big time, and even if that happens I know I don't have to stress about ending up in medical debt for the remainder of my natural life should something unfortunate befall me or my loved ones.
robin_reala · 12h ago
NL is definitely at the lower end of EU countries for notice periods. UK is typically 1 month for more junior roles, 2 for more senior. And in Sweden, 3 months is basically the default.
dzhiurgis · 23h ago
Yep, this is business 101. IMO all employees should default to contractors and then at very specific conditions become permanent.
slater · 23h ago
Who needs any discernible form of stability? CEOs exempted, of course!
saghm · 1d ago
That's mostly true, but I think there's still a bit of nuance; while there isn't really a defined list of acceptable reasons, there are some reasons that are specifically not allowed, like firing someone for race, gender, etc.
Of course, you could argue that being allowed to fire people for pretty much anything other than discrimination makes it an uphill battle to prove it if you were fired illegally, but I'm not attempting to make a defense of the system, just explain my understanding of it.
zhengyi13 · 1d ago
I dunno about you all, but I've immediately dropped this into the team Slack channel with a Professor Farnsworth "Good News Everyone!" gif.
e40 · 4h ago
Perfect use of the meme. I miss Futurama.
djmips · 13h ago
SMEEE HEEEE - Kryten
dec0dedab0de · 1d ago
In Philly it's the only way to get hired. Go Birds DH!!
squarefoot · 1d ago
In some places being fired after a clash with someone above your level counts almost as a gift. They know so many ways to make your life miserable without being it noticeable from the outside, so that if you don't wear a tough skin and can't manage the fine art of forgetting about work problems when you walk out of the office until the following day, leaving becomes the preferable option.
hinkley · 1d ago
My bigger problem with stuff like this is the people left behind. Every firing and layoff becomes a commentary on what the company actually values versus what they should value. It’s one of the reasons I prefer to be laid off in round 2. It means they didn’t think you were the worst, but also there’s still severance and they haven’t yet rewarded the most loyal employees with the most pain.
apparent · 1d ago
Whereas in Germany, one can have their house raided for calling a politician a dick (and be investigated for calling a politician fat). [1]
Even if there is truth to this, we sure won't find it at the NYP.
apparent · 1d ago
It's always good to verify. I noticed that that author is Rikki Schlott, who co-authored a book with the CEO of FIRE, and who also writes for Reason.
If what she has reported here isn't true, feel free to let us all know. Otherwise, it seems that truth can sometimes be found at the NYP.
barbazoo · 1d ago
> Germans are being arrested for insulting politicians
Is there any evidence that they were actually arrested? What I found was that there was an investigation but not that there have been any arrests made.
Sounds like the search of the apartment was ruled disproportionate and unlawful. But no arrests were made.
apparent · 23h ago
No one said anyone was arrested. But regardless, the fact that these raids/investigations happened has a strong chilling effect on speech.
barbazoo · 23h ago
> No one said anyone was arrested
Literally the NYP headline of the article my comment was a response to.
apparent · 23h ago
Oh sorry, when I said "no one" I meant no one here. You're right that the NYP headline is not accurate, since it only refers to an arrest of an Australian, not any Germans.
Ekaros · 22h ago
So system failed. Arrests should have been made. For everyone involved on side of doing search.
apparent · 1d ago
I don't know that there were any arrests, which is why I didn't use the word. Instead I provided the descriptions of what happened to them. Not as bad as arrest, but still pretty frightening that these things could happen as a result of such innocuous comments. It's not like they were calling for violence against the politicians or doxxing their families or something.
No comments yet
gwd · 1d ago
I mean, context is everything. Whether "dickhead" is unacceptable really depends on the culture of the workplace communication. If the response to someone calling you a "dickhead" is that you tell them twice to "fuck off", you're going to have a hard time making the argument that your workplace communication is expected to be explitive-free. And, "I only stayed here because of you two dickheads" is hardly toxic -- it's elegantly (by certain metrics) communicating an anguished sense of personal loyalty betrayed.
In another context, where "dickhead" was really out of place in the expected communication culture, and where it was really meant to be toxic rather than used to expressed an anguished sense of betrayed loyalty, "Mrs. Jones, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the building. The personal effects from your desk can be collected from reception tomorrow" might be more tolerated.
arethuza · 1d ago
"anguished sense of personal loyalty betrayed"
That's pretty much how I read it.
toast0 · 1d ago
Fuck off here is the britishism meaning please leave with much haste. It's a totally appropriate term.
cedilla · 1d ago
By that argument "dickhead" is just a britishism meaning "unreasonable person" and just as appropriate.
KaiserPro · 1d ago
I mean yes, yes it is, but thats clearly a pejorative, where as "i'm only here because of you two dickheads" isnt
If you upgrade it to "you two fucks" it still probably isnt.
"you two caaaaaaants", you would need to test if they are from glasgow or parts of london/essex
anonymousDan · 1d ago
Result! More seriously, it seems kind of reasonable as a judgement for a one-off remark made in the heat of the moment.
arethuza · 1d ago
And its a "scaffolding and brickwork company" - I mean have you ever heard scaffolders at work?
bombcar · 1d ago
From the construction crews I've been on, not calling the boss a dickhead is grounds for being very suspect, if not fired ...
Ekaros · 22h ago
Hell, I fully expect at least some of the bosses to be slightly dickish just to get work done on time.
fooker · 1d ago
Do that but also save others from joining toxic teams:
I love how she got compensated for legal fees. This should be noted higher in the article or even in the header, to show people that suing corporations can be safe (in some circumstances and countries).
IAmBroom · 1d ago
AFAIK that's standard in the British court system.
tialaramex · 1d ago
It depends. This was an employment tribunal, and it will typically decide that both parties should pay their own costs, however the tribunal is entitled to conclude that one of the parties was sufficiently wrong that there shouldn't have been a tribunal, and so they should pay everybody's costs.
This creates an incentive to settle rather than waste the tribunal's time when you're fucked.
The nastiest thing I've seen is Putin, via a surrogate, files a case, court accepts despite the Russian origin, the case is bullshit and they'll lose, but when the court says "This case was a waste of our time, losers pay for everything" the surrogate's lawyers go oh, sorry, that Russian surrogate has vanished, conveniently just after paying our high fees.
I think reform to ensure that either the surrogate must pay for insurance or that the state of Russia is on the hook not an amazing vanishing surrogate is needed. Or we could just penalize the hired guns, bankrupt a few millionaire law partners ?
pixelpoet · 1d ago
In Germany it's fully illegal (to insult someone, generally speaking)
mingus88 · 1d ago
It’s worth pointing out that there will always be consequences, regardless of the legality.
Insulting a C-level exec is tantamount to a professional suicide note.
arethuza · 1d ago
Only if they find out though? ;-)
toast0 · 1d ago
How dense do you think your C-level is that they won't find out you called them dickheads in a meeting with them?
olddustytrail · 1d ago
> How dense do you think your C-level is
I guess density doesn't really change, whether you have one short plank or two.
ratelimitsteve · 1d ago
"Reviewing the Q1 results vis a vis EBITA and thinking we could take the organization in a bit less of a phallocephalic direction than current leadership seems to desire..."
KaiserPro · 1d ago
you've got to roll for charisma first.
I once told a whole bunch of senior execs "they'd totally bollocksed it up" (I have a photo of it somehere)
ta1243 · 1d ago
> Insulting a C-level exec is tantamount to a professional suicide note.
I guess it depends on the exec and your relationship with them
em-bee · 1d ago
that's way to simplified. illegal means, you break the law and must necessarily be punished. but insults are only prosecuted by request of the insulted, and even if that happens, they are not necessarily grounds to be fired. the person making the insult may be punished in some other way.
it depends on the courts though, and it also depends on the relationship between the two people. the more close they are the less likely the accusation of insult is going to stand. stories about such cases go both ways.
arethuza · 1d ago
Would you be sacked immediately if you insulted your boss in the middle of a heated argument?
randomNumber7 · 1d ago
It could be worse if they report you and you get penalized by a court.
Most sane companies would probably not do that, but you never know (especially in Germany)
echoangle · 1d ago
Depends on the company but I would say generally maybe not, unless you stand by it later and refuse to apologize.
IncreasePosts · 1d ago
Huh? So I can't call a stranger in the street a Schwammpilz?
pixelpoet · 1d ago
Yes, in theory it's illegal to call people Wichsfresse
Nevermark · 1d ago
The recommended way to call your boss XYZ, is simply to ask your boss what the company policy implications would be, if you called them an XYZ.
nashashmi · 1d ago
> this one-off comment did not amount to gross misconduct or misconduct so serious to justify summary dismissal.
So full lack of professionalism is still a ground for termination. Nothing to see here. Headline is clickbait.
Spontaneous burst of anger is a small incident. Multiple small incidents can still establish a pattern of lacking professionalism.
My hopes were nearly up for a second.
idiomat9000 · 1d ago
The amount of choleric bosses i met, it depends .. if your boss regularly throws things after people insulting him is okay.
labrador · 1d ago
In America bosses brag about being dick heads in LinkedIn posts about how being tough (an asshole) increased B2B sales.
RajT88 · 1d ago
I'm not sure we should take the story at face value.
Someone in the UK calling their boss a dickhead, instead of a tosser, pillock, bellend, prat, knob or wanker? Unlikely.
yomismoaqui · 1d ago
Unrelated: every time I see the word dickhead I have to re-watch this work of art:
Clearly, yes, because the employer sacked someone and found out that they aren't allowed to...
bell-cot · 1d ago
Only if your boss is a d*ckhead.
blackhaz · 1d ago
Lawyers and judges finding ways to make money for themselves. It is obvious nothing productive will ever come out of a configuration where employee calls their boss a dickhead, and the company wants to get rid of such an employee. The only benefit of such a ruling is governments and companies spending more money on lawyers, judges, rulings and all this legal bullshittery.
dataflow · 1d ago
> It is obvious nothing productive will ever come out
Is someone being able to continue paying their bills and given an opportunity to find other jobs before they have to rely on safety nets unproductive?
Is holding companies to their own policies unproductive?
Whose perspective are you caring about here?
OrvalWintermute · 1d ago
what about a MFing SOB POS? :)
hinkley · 1d ago
But what if he objectively is a dickhead.
dudeinjapan · 1d ago
What if your boss is named Mr. Richard Head?
ratelimitsteve · 1d ago
Phil O. Kephalos
gorfian_robot · 1d ago
what about an "asshat"? (asking for a friend)
GJim · 1d ago
You mean an arsehat?
No, because in Blighty, that isn't a proper insult.
People would think you odd for using silly Americanisms and simply call you a festering cheesy bellend in return.
salawat · 1d ago
Asshat is like an asshole, but with an added shade of the subject being functionally useless.
metalman · 1d ago
in Canada you can tell even the police to fuck off, but not fuck you, which generaly seems a good place to put the line, so actualy calling someone a dickhead would not be ok, comenting on the situation as bieng dicked or fucked, screwed, etc
the exception would be if there was no seperation and the boss was also a sole descision maker or business owner, but in a large company a "boss" is
just an employee who cant be held directly and completly resonsible for dickery.
jonplackett · 1d ago
Anyone unhappy with your job - quick go call your boss a dickhead and get sacked before they read this!
ceejayoz · 1d ago
Check your employment contract first, as that was the sticking point here.
robofanatic · 1d ago
well, can't you simply leave if you are unhappy?
dfxm12 · 1d ago
Kerrie Herbert has been awarded almost £30,000 in compensation and legal costs after an employment tribunal found she had been unfairly dismissed.
Not without collecting damages.
jonplackett · 1d ago
Exactly my point (although in obviously JOKING guys. Jeez.
fourseventy · 1d ago
I'm glad my company is in the United States. Imagine an employee calling you a dickhead to your face and not being able to fire them, ridiculous.
ratelimitsteve · 1d ago
the article makes it plain that this is a miscomprehension of the situation
olddustytrail · 20h ago
I think you'll find the manager was also an employee.
BenFranklin100 · 1d ago
Absolutely.
exe34 · 1d ago
have you tried not being a dickhead?
No comments yet
sentrysapper · 1d ago
'Sackable' was a great word choice. Well done Guardian.
cwmma · 1d ago
That's not a choice by the Guardian, that's the regular normal way of saying fireable in British English
stefanos82 · 1d ago
English language can be a landmine if you are not careful, especially as a foreigner! lol
falcor84 · 1d ago
You piqued my interest - in what language is the literal translation of "dickhead" not insulting? And what does it imply in that language?
arethuza · 1d ago
In the UK words like that can also equally be used as terms of endearment amongst friends... context is everything.
falcor84 · 22h ago
I don't think that's a UK thing, but rather just a close friends thing, which I experienced across multiple cultures. I recall a particular incident as a kid when my dad forcefully told me "Don't talk to me like that; I'm not your friend" and that stuck with me - you need to adapt your tone to the audience.
stefanos82 · 22h ago
The last thing I expected was to get downvoted for just saying "English language can be a landmine if you are not careful, especially as a foreigner! lol".
English language uses words such as pussy that supposedly mean a cat, but at the same time they interpret it as vagina; another word is the name Dick which also is being used to mean phallus!
Meanwhile, I get downvoted for commenting the obvious thing which is, English language is absurdly confusing for me as a foreigner and have no idea what to say without offending every English speaker!
You can't fire someone without process. The ruling is that this wasn't "gross misconduct", and proper procedure for dealing with the behaviour should have been followed.
So before someone comes in claiming the UK to be an unruly anarchy, if you go around dissing the boss or your company then you'll still find yourself facing disciplinary action and could be eventually sacked, just not on the spot!
Let's not trivialize verbal abuse by calling it hurt feelings.
I'm not saying this level of seriousness is what happened here, but you exaggerate in the other direction.
What an employee says about their boss generally has zero implications on their career and lives, so long as it does not outright accuse them of a crime. When's the last time someone called you to provide a reference on your boss? I thought so.
In turn, what a boss says about their employees can be entirely career-ending and therefore life-altering, even if said in jest or later retracted. A higher standard exists precisely because the stakes are so much higher.
Even if you know the lines aren't blurred, if you perceive others acting as though it's up for debate, you're more likely to consider bad-faith appeals to the subjectivity of abuse as perhaps being in good faith. Few among us are philosophers capable of reasoning everything through from first principles, all the time, so these things matter.
Tone and body language are like 80%+ of in-person, verbal communication.
We need to be very careful to, as I mentioned, not “abuse” the term abuse to the point where it becomes meaningless. If everything is abuse, nothing is abuse, and we need to invent a new term.
As does some of the conduct that may lead to the counterparty calling you names in the heat of the moment.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, and find people who do take themselves seriously worthy of some extra piss taking to bring them down a peg.
(Oh, and rm -rf'ing your HD *would* land you in very serious legal trouble. It is a criminal act under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. And rightly so.)
It's similar to probationary periods - you'll see a few people fired right at the three month mark but it's usually more of a case of giving that employee grace for the probationary period rather than accelerating a firing that'd happen later.
"Section 94 does not apply to the dismissal of an employee unless he has been continuously employed for a period of not less than two years ending with the effective date of termination"
Section 94 is the name of a section of the current law regarding the general idea of like, employing people, and that section says you can't unfairly dismiss them, so this sub-sub clause says that only applies after two years.
Edited to add: This stuff is easier to find in the UK because although it's legalese, the Westminster Parliament is obliged by its own rules to name laws after what they do, this is an employment law so I searched for "Employment". In the US it might be called the NICEHAT Act or Jim Smith's Law or some other useless nonsense because they have no such rule.
Persuading the tax man that the cleaners who in effect are your direct employees are "freelance" somehow and so you shouldn't have to pay the tax. Or claiming that the labourers you hired don't get paid from 0830 because they aren't "really" working until 0900 even though they're in a company minibus being driven to the worksite and this is the only way they could get there.
Neither of those things is legal here but both of them might happen and will only sometimes get reported and those responsible will get at worst a fine. If you tried anything like this shit with Sam who has a penthouse office in the City he'll summon a swarm of employment lawyers and ruin your life, but because Mateusz who cleans the toilets has dubious immigration status and he's behind on his rent he's probably not going to make a fuss when you steal from him this way. This sucks.
The problems are always at the very bottom. People who are closest to the poverty line, most easily replaceable, least easily able to organize and demand better and also most separated from those who have more freedom to demand change. One important angle unions think about is schemes to separate these low wages workers from colleagues who would be able to advocate for improvements. If the guy cleaning the toilets doesn't legally work for the same company as the guy who uses them, suddenly the question of whether "cleaning toilets" pays a living wage isn't a matter of employee solidarity...
Edited: Swapped Manhattan for the City (of London) because the topic is specifically UK employment
The actual judgement is a trip: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64ae81ed8bc29... (these are her in-laws!!!)
Anyway, main point is that points 129 and 130 basically say 'you can't dismiss someone for calling their boss a dickhead', and then 134-136 say 'and even your own guidelines say so'.
Should bosses also get one free insult for their employees too? Obviously not.
A workplace where no one swears, ever, sounds shit.
"Not calling someone a dickhead" should not take constant cognitive load or feel like "playing minesweeper" all day.
That said I really don't think something like this warrants dismissal, unless it's a frequent problem. Obviously we shouldn't be going around and insulting each other for no reason, but are bosses really so fragile that they can't deal with a single instance of their subordinates being sorta mean to them and calling them names?
In all earnestness, without any malice, my American friend (who I'd worked with before and at TomTom) asked a group of co-workers if anybody wanted to be his guinea pig for some new software, and boy that didn't over well with the Italian guy! He profusely apologized and explained what he really meant by the term "my guinea pig", and things were just fine, plus he learned not to call Italians "guinea pigs" (with either the hard or soft "g").
That same friend eventually left the company for a much better offer, but later TomTom rehired him with a huge promotion and pay raise because they really loved his work and desperately needed him, and he was irreplaceable. He was rehired and promoted to CTO, and finally he was having dinner with a bunch of the TomTom founders and executives, including the CMO Corinne Vigreux and her husband the CEO Harold Goddijn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinne_Vigreux
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Goddijn
Then Corinne Vigreux said something blatantly transphobic, which she obviously meant as a slur (unlike his "guinea pig" faux pas that he immediately apologized for), so he called her on it, and she would not take it back or apologize, and that incident led to him suddenly leaving the company.
That was after TomTom spent huge amounts of money to initially recruit, then later rehire and retain him, he designed and implemented key parts of their infrastructure, and they even prominently featured him in many of their recruiting videos and magazine articles and LinkedIn posts, saying how much he liked working there -- many of them are still online at TomTom's recruiting web site!
But thanks to the inherent power imbalance, her executive level privilege, and the nepotistic advantage of being married to the CEO, she got away with it scott free, and they hushed up the reason he left).
He lost his dream job, and everyone else was left wondering why he suddenly disappeared for no apparent reason, after being so pleasant to work with, performing so well, and being so frequently exploited as a recruiting spokesperson, and interviewed as a representative of the company. (I am not exaggerating that if you google tomtom + his name you get pages of unique interviews and articles over many years.)
Corinne Vigreux drove him out of his job for speaking out against her intentional slur, when she clearly said and meant it in front of several other people, when she's the one who should have been reported to HR and punished for what she said, not him.
Over many years, TomTom spent a LOT of money recruiting, relocating, then re-recruiting him, they loved his work. I originally recruited him by introducing and recommending him to executives, managers, and HR. I still have the enthusiastic emails I sent with and about him, which they acted on by giving him an offer he couldn't refuse and relocating him. I never got any recruiting bonus, since I was a contractor at the time I recruited him. I just wanted the opportunity to work with him again, and cherished the opportunity to get the old band back together in Amsterdam.
The manager I recommended him to, who hired him and worked closely with him, was shocked and dismayed to hear about the actual reason he suddenly left. Especially because the company culture as a whole is definitely not transphobic, and I know current employees with trans children who were also quite shocked to hear about Corinne Vigreux's bigotry. TomTom certainly gives a lot of lip service to inclusivity on their web site.
Introducing the LGBTQIA+ Committee: How TomTom is empowering inclusive action:
https://www.tomtom.com/newsroom/life-at-tomtom/how-tomtom-is...
But after the derogatory transphobic bullshit Corinne Vigreux said in front of witnesses, which was clearly in violation of company policy, culture, scientific facts, and just plain human decency, I believe she morally owes TomTom a refund of all the money they spent recruiting and relocating and hiring him twice, as well as all the money they had to spend replacing him.
Because she can CERTAINLY afford it. She might even learn to keep her bigoted mouth shut and transphobic opinions to herself, or grow some thicker skin if she can't bring herself to be do that, merely being polite and respectful to her own employees, instead of being bigoted and vengeful. And not to be so blatant about taking advantage of her nepotism and exploiting the power imbalance and her husband.
Not just because of all of TomTom's money and reputation she burnt at the altar of her ugly bigoted vanity, but because of how difficult her bigotry and nepotism make it for TomTom to recruit and retain good people: a problem she recognizes and publicly talks about herself. The transphobia's one thing, but losing high level talented employees because they stand up to transphobia or any kind of bigotry is much more systemically worse, and should be actionable by HR.
Navigating decline: what happened to TomTom?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/21/navigating-...
>In fact, she thinks, the lack of talented staff is “the biggest issue most organisations are facing. You have to fish in a bigger pond to fill those gaps. So of course you should look at women too”.
Apparently not trans women, nor people who stand up to her transphobic bigotry either.
TomTom certainly hasn't been doing well under HER leadership (just google the ill-fated sports watches and "TomTom Bandit" that you've probably never heard of -- maybe the product name was too honest about the cost of its subscription service).
Bandit Studio & Bandit apps discontinued:
https://help.tomtom.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360017291459-Bandi...
But being married to the CEO has its nepotistic advantages, like being able to say whatever she wants in front of everyone, and then get rid of anyone who has the guts to stand up to her and call her out on her bigotry.
The fuck it is. There is a while bunch of preconditions that need to be met first. (for example, if you're working as a teacher, its probably unproffesh, but as an engineer[a real one, not a software engineer], you need to call a spade a spade.)
You can't have "professionalism" as a mask to allow abuse or general degrading treatment at work.
crucially the person in question used dickheads non-pejoratively, it wasn't an insult. However the employer didn't follow procedure either.
Personally, I've never worked anywhere in Blighty where giving and accepting piss taking and creative insults isn't the norm. Anybody offended by this will be politely told to develop a sense of humour (of the type spelt with a 'u').
If their employment contract requires it, sure. This worker's contract guaranteed them a warning in this scenario. They are protected by that legally binding contract. That's the entire point of it.
Even outside a contract, consequences for actions should be proportional to the harm of those actions. "You called me a mild insult in the heat of the moment after years of productive employment, so I'm removing your livelihood" is not.
The sections you quoted don't support this statement. The quoted statements highlight contractual clauses which include "excessive" foul language which one instance of calling someone a dickhead does not approach. The only point a single instance of swearing could be grounds for dismissal were against a customer, which is specifically highlighted in the contract.
Were the contract to include a clause of "you will not swear at other employees," then that would have been sufficient. Now, whether that falls foul of the Equality Act (due to discriminatory treatment) is a different question. You can't extrapolate any result of that from this case, however.
It’s actually not against the Equality Act to treat employees differently, as long as you don’t do it because of a protected characteristic.
That part of the ruling is independent of the company policies.
Although apparently they did actually try to pay her for her notice period and she sent it back? This case is a whole load of fun to read through.
You might even be able to have something generic like "verbal abuse" but then you have to be careful that it might be turned on the bosses and cause another type of lawsuit.
That’s why I don’t see these rulings as a win for the common employee. The situation now encourages companies to be as broad as possible with their contracts and policies and include so many just-in-case provisions that it starts to get hard for anyone to know and follow all of them.
No, they aren't because that's not how contracts or the law work in the UK. The court found that the contract enumerated a long list of breaches of contract, of which "swearing at colleagues" was not in that list. This means the court read the list as exhaustive, because it appeared to be exhaustive.
If the contract was worded differently, the court may not have used this interpretive rule. If the wording was a little more broad, the court may have worked to determine whether "swearing at your boss" could reasonably fit into the terms.
Yes, and that's why I said HR and Legal are updating their boilerplate to be more exhaustive.
I'm saying they're going to update the contracts to match the labor laws.
If the labor laws say you have to have fireable offenses explicitly enumerated, contracts will now have a lot of fireable offenses explicitly enumerated. That's not evading the law, that's literally how you comply with the law.
They don't, nor does this decision.
The company simply didn't follow the rules of the employment contract, which both parties had agreed to.
No they're not. This ruling makes no difference to the legal, employment or contractual landscape of the UK. Reading the ruling, it was resolved in exactly the way any competent HR lawyer would expect. The employer was bang out of order and was rightly slapped down by the court.
> If the labor laws say you have to have fireable offenses explicitly enumerated
No they don't. As others have pointed out: the ruling flags that the contract itself enumerates gross misconduct offences. Some of which include "excessive swearing" or "swearing at customers." Given the context of what the contract does enumerate, the court found that the contract does not consider this, obviously, lesser misconduct was out of scope of gross misconduct, as per the terms of the contract.
If the contract did not include such a specific list, but merely described a more broad category of things that are considered gross misconduct, then the court might have ruled differently.
If you want to fire someone you follow procedure. In this case they didn't follow procedure. This is exactly the sort of situation HR already despairs over.
Writing new HR documents can't fix this, the same way that bolding the text "Do not press this button" in the instruction manual will not stop customers who don't read the manual and then press the button from doing so.
This also just obviously isn't gross misconduct. So now your rewritten procedures might get you sued which (checks notes) is the opposite of what you wanted.
In this case, all they had to do was issue a warning - as they promosed to do in the contract - instead of a summary firing for the first offense. If the behavior reoccurred they'd have been clear.
We're literally reading an example of someone being protected by laws and your response is "well this is actually bad for them"?
have you read any of your company's policys recently?
at one company I could be technically fired for wearing a tracksuit to work.
at a FAANG, one that was very famous for upholding "freedom of expression", could fire me for questioning _in private_ the direction of anyone more senior than me.
Even if those policies are broad and all encompassing, you still need to demonstrate that they were applied correctly, proportionally and reasonably.
You also need to prove that the _policy_ is reasonable as well.
for example you _could_ have a policy where you cannot say anything negative. Good luck trying to prove that its legally reasonable (and that it was applied evenly)
That's just going to lead to a lawsuit on the definition of "verbal abuse".
> A quick update to the procedures that calling someone a dickhead is a fireable offense is all that is needed.
Even specifically stating that might not work. It is not uncommon for such clauses to be struck through in court if they are deemed unfair and disproportionally punitive to the employee.
For a regular office drone otherwise in good standing, given the UK's cultural context, getting fired for calling your boss a "dickhead" is an extremely harsh punishment. An official warning, improvement plan, or some kind of training would be more appropriate.
> However, this required she be given a prior warning. Only more serious breaches such as “threatening and intimidating language” would be gross misconduct and warrant summary dismissal.
It seems like the prior warning is the necessary part. The company obviously wants to write the rules such that the upper management team can make a one-off stupid comment to an employee without the employee suing to get them fired. Unfortunately, this means the upper management team can't rage-fire someone with no thought. (No doubt to show how in charge and powerful they are, which kind of proves the person using the term "dickhead" right.)
Nope, needs to be reasonable. If you're doing something unusual, then it needs to be telegraphed and backed up so that if you are taken to court you can give evidence as to why that clause was needed.
> have something generic like "verbal abuse"
you would need to have a policy that defines what verbal abuse is, and a way to record and catagorise it. its also a hard task to prove that one instance of verbal abuse where using "dickhead" as a term of endearment without any other connotations (sexual or otherwise) is gross misconduct, especially as the reply was "you can fuck off"
I think trying to fire someone based on that rather than addressing whatever conflict or friction lead to the “name calling” is an example of bad management.
Telling someone to fuck off could be verbal abuse, as fuck is a verb. But in this case it was not the purely figurative suggestion to fuck off was the britishism meaning to please leave with haste.
Saying "You're a dickhead" is verbal abuse. Saying "Dickhead" alone is nounal abuse.
The ruling holds that business process is not only legally binding, but trump's the terms for dismissal in the employment contract.
No, it doesn't. The business process was part of the legally binding contract.
> The hearing was told that under the terms of her contract, she could be fired for “the provocative use of insulting or abusive language”. However, this required she be given a prior warning. Only more serious breaches such as “threatening and intimidating language” would be gross misconduct and warrant summary dismissal.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64ae81ed8bc29...
> Section 15 and 16 of the contract deal with disciplinary rules and unsatisfactory work and misconduct. Sections 18, 19 and 20 specify the respondent’s disciplinary procedures. Section 21 details the appeals procedure. The grievance procedure and grievance appeal procedure are laid out at section 22.
> At section 16 there is a list of the type of conduct or unsatisfactory work that may lead to dismissal after a prior warning has been given. There is a non exhaustive list of examples which include negligence, carelessness or general lack of capability in performance of the employees duties, bad timekeeping and the provocative use of insulting or abusive language.
You fire one person for calling their boss a dickhead, you’d better be sure you never allowed someone on the same contract to call their boss a dickhead without being fired.
Forgiving a fireable offense in one case doesn't mean every case must be forgiven.
The topic is flexibility in hiring/ firing decisions and whether this flexibility is a good or bad thing overall. The empirical data between US and Europe - where the US has much higher wages and generally lower unemployment - suggests but does not prove this flexibility contributes to a better overall job market. In the US employers may be quicker to fire you, but they are also quicker to hire you.
Personally, as an employee I like the flexibility. If I do a good job, it’s rare to get fired, and I have more ability to jump ship if don’t like my current job.
This is a complete non-issue in presumably the entire EU (I can only speak for the Netherlands personally, but it's a safe bet except for perhaps Germany)? You can't get fired for literally no reason like in the US, but you can terminate your contract at any time you want with usually 1 month notice. I've literally never encountered any job where it was more than 1 month's notice unless they were very, very high up the food chain like Principal Engineer or VP level, and at that level it's presumably similarly difficult to leave even in the US.
I've actually just quit my job at the start of this month, and I had 16 paid vacation days leftover, so I'll be working for less than half the month before starting my next role. Sure seems like a lot of ability to jump ship to me.
And getting hired hasn't felt harder or more complicated for me than my experience for US companies. Interview processes are the same, you get hired ASAP with companies understanding there's notice periods before you can start working, For the businesses there's a 1-3 month probationary period where you can be let go (most common is 1 month) for no reason, and it's also not like it's impossible to get rid of truly bad performers either, there's just rules in place to make sure companies don't fuck over their employee's lives on a whim. They have to actually prove someone is a detriment to the team, shock horror, in order to fire them.
The alternative in the US for the majority of people not working in big tech for big tech salaries is that the fear of getting fired at any moment in time constantly looms over your head. You're always 1 power-trip away from getting fired by some egotistical dickhead, on top of already having much poorer worker protections, not to mention the state of US healthcare and the fear people have there.
Me? I have a permanent contract and can live safely in the knowledge that if they want to get rid of me unfairly, it'll cost them big time, and even if that happens I know I don't have to stress about ending up in medical debt for the remainder of my natural life should something unfortunate befall me or my loved ones.
Of course, you could argue that being allowed to fire people for pretty much anything other than discrimination makes it an uphill battle to prove it if you were fired illegally, but I'm not attempting to make a defense of the system, just explain my understanding of it.
1: https://nypost.com/2025/02/21/world-news/germans-cant-insult...
If what she has reported here isn't true, feel free to let us all know. Otherwise, it seems that truth can sometimes be found at the NYP.
Is there any evidence that they were actually arrested? What I found was that there was an investigation but not that there have been any arrests made.
Literally the NYP headline of the article my comment was a response to.
No comments yet
In another context, where "dickhead" was really out of place in the expected communication culture, and where it was really meant to be toxic rather than used to expressed an anguished sense of betrayed loyalty, "Mrs. Jones, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the building. The personal effects from your desk can be collected from reception tomorrow" might be more tolerated.
That's pretty much how I read it.
If you upgrade it to "you two fucks" it still probably isnt.
"you two caaaaaaants", you would need to test if they are from glasgow or parts of london/essex
https://ratemymanager.fyi/
This creates an incentive to settle rather than waste the tribunal's time when you're fucked.
The nastiest thing I've seen is Putin, via a surrogate, files a case, court accepts despite the Russian origin, the case is bullshit and they'll lose, but when the court says "This case was a waste of our time, losers pay for everything" the surrogate's lawyers go oh, sorry, that Russian surrogate has vanished, conveniently just after paying our high fees.
I think reform to ensure that either the surrogate must pay for insurance or that the state of Russia is on the hook not an amazing vanishing surrogate is needed. Or we could just penalize the hired guns, bankrupt a few millionaire law partners ?
Insulting a C-level exec is tantamount to a professional suicide note.
I guess density doesn't really change, whether you have one short plank or two.
I once told a whole bunch of senior execs "they'd totally bollocksed it up" (I have a photo of it somehere)
I guess it depends on the exec and your relationship with them
it depends on the courts though, and it also depends on the relationship between the two people. the more close they are the less likely the accusation of insult is going to stand. stories about such cases go both ways.
Most sane companies would probably not do that, but you never know (especially in Germany)
So full lack of professionalism is still a ground for termination. Nothing to see here. Headline is clickbait.
Spontaneous burst of anger is a small incident. Multiple small incidents can still establish a pattern of lacking professionalism.
My hopes were nearly up for a second.
Someone in the UK calling their boss a dickhead, instead of a tosser, pillock, bellend, prat, knob or wanker? Unlikely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVmmYMwFj1I
EDIT: better version
Is someone being able to continue paying their bills and given an opportunity to find other jobs before they have to rely on safety nets unproductive?
Is holding companies to their own policies unproductive?
Whose perspective are you caring about here?
No, because in Blighty, that isn't a proper insult.
People would think you odd for using silly Americanisms and simply call you a festering cheesy bellend in return.
Not without collecting damages.
No comments yet
English language uses words such as pussy that supposedly mean a cat, but at the same time they interpret it as vagina; another word is the name Dick which also is being used to mean phallus!
...and the best one is spotted dick which is literally a British steamed pudding! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_dick
Meanwhile, I get downvoted for commenting the obvious thing which is, English language is absurdly confusing for me as a foreigner and have no idea what to say without offending every English speaker!