Employment: Lidl consultant ‘punished’ for not having a university degree wins unfair dismissal case

A Lidl employee sacked after 23 years’ service for not having a degree has been awarded almost £51,000 in compensation.

An employment tribunal ruled that Wayne Norman, aged 63, a senior construction consultant, was unfairly dismissed and indirectly discriminated against during a round of redundancies.

Even though his employer, Lidl, had attempted to conduct a fair redundancy process, including using a scoring process to assess him against his colleagues, it had not ‘fairly and reasonably’ applied it in Mr Norman’s case with expensive consequences.

• Wards Solicitors’ specialist Employment Team can provide help and advice if your organisation needs guidance on this area of the law.

What happened in this unfair dismissal case?

During a genuine restructuring process at Lidl’s regional property office in Doncaster, Mr Norman was told that the number of senior construction consultants was being reduced from three to one.

The three consultants were all assessed using a scoring system and at a meeting to challenge his score (which was one point less than the person ultimately confirmed to stay on in the role), Mr Norman was told by his line manager he’d had his result reduced in the knowledge section.

This, he was informed, was for being “marked down for not having ‘relevant construction qualifications’ in that you do not have a construction degree”.

When his redundancy was confirmed, Mr Norman remonstrated that this lower score, because he didn’t have a degree, was discriminatory due to his age.

He argued that people in their sixties were ‘less likely’ to have a degree compared to those in their thirties, the age group into which the other two consultants fell.

What did the employment tribunal decide?

The employment tribunal judge agreed that Mr Norman’s treatment had made him feel ‘discredited’ and ‘punished’ for growing up on a council estate with no opportunity to go to university.

The tribunal ruled that the ‘failure to conduct a reasonable process of consultation’ was enough to make the dismissal unfair.

Even though Lidl had set up a ‘potentially fair’ scoring and criteria method, it had not ‘fairly and reasonably’ applied it in Mr Norman’s case.

Managers involved in the redundancy implementation process ‘did not fully understand the nature of the task they were being asked to complete or the degree of analysis it might perhaps be subject to if challenged’.

Lidl was ordered to pay Mr Norman £46,280 in compensation for unfair dismissal – the ruling noted that the amount awarded had been reduced by 50% to reflect the chance he would have been fairly dismissed in any event – and a further £4,646 for injury to feelings due to indirect age discrimination.

This was in addition to the redundancy payment of just over £17,000 he’d already received.

What can employers learn from this unfair dismissal case?

This case shows the importance of having a clear redundancy and proposal plan which all managers know and understand and making it sure it is implemented carefully and correctly.

There needs to be a genuine consultation process before any final decisions are made using a fair, reasonable and objectively verifiable redundancy selection criteria.

Equally important, is that this redundancy selection criteria doesn’t include any indirectly discriminatory standards.

In Mr Norman’s case, the Tribunal found that the weight given to the importance of a university degree in the knowledge section, indirectly discriminated against older employees who may have had less chance to go to university than their younger colleagues.

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If you need advice about this area of the law, please contact Wards Solicitors’ specialist Employment Team.

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