In the case of Ms N H v Mitie Limited Ms NH worked at Mitie, an FTSE 250 company, for over a decade and resigned after she returned to work from maternity leave due to an unmanageable workload.
Mrs NH said she was labelled as “hormonal” by one of the managers at Mitie. She said: “The hormones or the emotional feelings that I was going through at the time was not because I was a pregnant woman. It’s because I was an exhausted employee.”
The tribunal found that her bosses had handled her complaints during pregnancy “ineptly”, with Judge Tynan commenting: “The inference was that she was not fully in control of her emotions because of the pregnancy and that she was making unreasonable demands as a result.”
Mrs NH said her work environment had changed. She explained: “It wasn’t the pregnancy that changed it, it was the environment itself.”
Hinds said the increase in her workload had triggered panic attacks, which in turn stopped the growth of her baby. After speaking to her doctor, she went on maternity leave early and describes that time as feeling like a “huge inconvenience”. She resigned in September 2021.
The tribunal found that Mrs NH’s boss had stereotyped her as “an emotional, hormonal pregnant woman and that in the particular circumstances, his description of her as emotional and tearful was dismissive and belittling”.
She said she was made to work on a project in which she had little experience. Mrs NH said, “I’d served 10 years in the operational side of the business, and shortly after announcing my pregnancy, I was heavily encouraged and somewhat pursued to undertake a more administrative role, and there were comments used that it would suit me better now.”
Mrs NH, who represented herself during the proceedings, is now in line for compensation.
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