The Complainant was employed by the Respondent as a Sales Assistant in November 2016 and terminated the employment in November 2018 as a result of being sexually harassed and subjected to discrimination.

When the Complainant commenced employment with the Respondent company, she signed the contract of employment but never received the company’s grievance policy. On her return from maternity leave in November 2017 she claimed that she was subjected to comments of a sexual nature by the Assistant Manager which made her feel uncomfortable. These comments lasted for a period of approximately six months before she filed a complaint against the Assistant Manager. The actions of the Assistant Manager led to the Complainant’s deterioration of her mental health along with her own self-confidence. She felt humiliated on a daily basis.

The Complainant, in her evidence, outlined some of the incidents which took place. She said that the Assistant Manager called her sexually offensive names, made sexually explicit gestures towards her, asked her to engage in lewd acts and suggested she provide sexual favours for him in return for keeping her job. When the Complainant asked the Assistant Manager to stop, he told her to f*** off. She said that the Assistant Manager sexually harassed her every day she worked with him until she made a written complaint to HR. The Complainant said that she complained to the other Assistant Manager, but nothing was done about it. Other staff members frequently witnessed and joined in on the abuse.

The Respondent submitted that after the Complainant had provided a hand-written complaint an investigation was initiated immediately. The complaint about sexual harassment was upheld, and the Complainant was informed by letter dated 22nd of May 2018.

Upon examining the evidence, the Adjudication Officer found that the treatment fell within the definition of sexual harassment under Section 14A of the Employment Equality Act.  The Adjudicating Officer also pointed out how “Managers or other persons with supervisory or management functions in every employment have a responsibility pursuant to the Employment Equality Acts to ensure that employees are not sexually harassed in the workplace and they also have a very serious responsibility to ensure that the employer’s policies and procedures are implemented and complied with by all staff including management and appropriate action is taken where breaches occur and to prevent a reoccurrence”.

Given the inexplicable failure of management to prevent the discriminatory treatment and the serious nature of the discriminatory treatment, the Complainant was awarded redress in the amount of €40,000.
https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2019/july/adj-00015003.html