In the case of Spence v Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd, a Sainsbury’s worker who called her boss a “young idiot” on Facebook has been awarded more than £8,000 after an employment tribunal ruled she’d been unfairly dismissed.
68-year-old Miss Spence, whose daughter had created the Facebook account for her, told the tribunal she believed she was contacting the former colleague privately and had no idea the comment was public.
The tribunal heard she was later fired after she questioned whether the disciplinary manager was in a romantic relationship with the manager referenced in the Facebook comment.
The tribunal found that Sainsbury’s had various HR policies that Spence had had no training on, such as social media guidelines, and the equality, diversity and inclusion policy which states that line managers must make sure colleagues understand the policy.
Judge A Jones said it was clear that the Operations Manager thought the only options available to him was “no action or dismissal”, adding that “in these circumstances, the dismissal of [Spence] was not within the band of reasonable responses and therefore unfair”.
Jones said: “While it was clear that [Spence] had become a thorn in the side of the managers to whom she reported, the Tribunal did not accept that [Spence] raising genuine and valid questions as to whether a manager who had issued her with a final written warning had a conflict of interest at the relevant time amounted to blameworthy conduct.”
Spence was awarded a total of £8,357.20, consisting of a basic award of £3,390 and a compensatory award of £4,867.20.
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