Judging by the minor complaints being put to employment tribunals, workplace etiquette appears to be breaking down. But the headlines rarely tell the full story
I
would hate to be in human resources at the moment. Admittedly, as someone with no discernible people skills, I would always hate it, but I’ve been imagining the awkward HR meetings behind the scenes of the recent wave of “what is acceptable workplace behaviour” rulings from UK employment tribunals recently, and … oof!
I’m thinking, particularly, of last week’s ruling on whether younger chatty workers disturbing an older colleague constitutes age discrimination (it didn’t), but there are many more. Comparing a colleague to Darth Vader in an online personality test resulted in a £30,000 compensation award. Leaving someone out of the tea round could contribute to unfair constructive dismissal. Sighing at a colleague could be discriminatory. An air kiss wasn’t harassment and neither was telling a manager his work was messy. Allocating a senior employee a “low-status desk” can be seen as a demotion.
Of course, any acrimonious departure is about more than one thing. These are mostly cherrypicked contributory factors; easy headlines about situations that surely involved a complex brew of circumstances and personalities. But it does look like more cases considering how we should behave at work in quite granular ways are reaching tribunals. So, what’s going on?
