In the case of Ms S.J. Williams v Lyons Holiday Park Ltd a 60 year old marketing assistant has won an unfair dismissal case after bosses ousted her because she was poor at social media. Sylvia Williams was the target of a sham redundancy process engineered by managers to ‘get rid’ of her as their social media pages slumped.
Managers at Lyons Holiday Parks, which has 14 sites in North Wales and Cumbria, were unhappy the firm had ‘fallen behind competitors’ while long-serving Sylvia Williams was in charge of social media, a tribunal heard. They wanted more ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ online and Ms Williams – who still adopted ‘historical’ marketing techniques – was blamed for its ‘inefficiency’.
But Ms Williams wasn’t offered a training course, the tribunal heard, and found herself ‘side-lined’ for new, social media savvy staff in their early 20s. She was told ‘it was good to give youngsters a chance’ and she had online duties taken away from her. She was then allegedly pulled into an “engineered” redundancy process and later sacked.
A tribunal report said: “Directors wanted to enhance and extend its marketing to fully exploit opportunities offered by digital marketing and social media. [They] realised it had fallen behind its competitors in such activities, including in the number of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ of its postings.”
Ms Williams had been conducting ‘marketing tours’ with promotional vans or caravans and attending charity events rather than exploiting social media data, it was heard. Lucy Raven, 23, was appointed as a marketing assistant in 2017 to improve its social media and online duties were shifted onto her, though Ms Williams was ultimately responsible for social media.
In December 2019 Miss Raven was invited on a training course but Ms Williams wasn’t. “Ms Williams was not seen as a long-term prospect in the re-vamped department given the department’s past performance and the ill-will abounding”, the tribunal report said.
Judge Ryan ruled that Ms Williams was unfairly dismissed but not discriminated against due to her age. The judge said: “We find however that if Ms Williams was seen to be performing efficiently in her department and was making full, or even better, use of social media and exploiting its potential then she may not have been dismissed.
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