Scrivens Ltd implemented a policy that if an employee left the company within a period of time they would have to repay a proportion of their training costs. You could say, ‘fair enough’ and many companies have a similar policy.
However, the Employment Tribunal awarded the claimant, Ms Walworth a total of £11,000 in compensation for loss of earnings and injury to feelings after they upheld her claim of discrimination.
The employee advised Scrivens that she was pregnant and that she would go on maternity leave in April 2016. The HR Department wrote to her confirming this and that the training repayment period under her training agreement would be ‘paused’ for the period of maternity leave. It is this ‘pause’ that Ms Walworth believed was discriminatory and this is what the tribunal upheld. Whilst on maternity leave the employee informed the HR department that she may not return to work and following the response from the company that she would have to give 12 weeks’ notice and repay all of her training costs that she complained.
The Employment Tribunal held that Ms Walworth should be awarded the following compensation:
- A basic award for £2,615.36 (in respect of the claim of unfair dismissal)
- Financial losses of £4,148.50
- Compensation for Injury To Feelings £4,374.36
- Unpaid holiday pay £325.59
Here is a link to the full judgement https://bit.ly/2uzIyI0
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