[ad_1]
A senior manager says his dismissal from a software company with a base salary of €170,000 was a “sham” redundancy involving his US-based boss, who he said benefited from the decision and he shouldn’t have There is such a decision. role in the process.
Kevin Foley, former senior sales director for Europe, the Middle East and Asia (EMEA) at Digital River Ireland Ltd, told the Workplace Relations Council he thought he would stay on until next spring when he was offered a retention bonus for 2022 in August – less than a Months later, the company told him he would face the possibility of layoffs.
“To this day, I still don’t know what happened in the business to cause this huge change and to be told that I was no longer part of the business,” he told the Workplace Relations Commission earlier this week.
Lawyers for Digital River said Mr Foley was told “time and time again” what was going on but “just didn’t like the response”.
The company denied Mr Foley’s claim under the Unfair Dismissal Act 1977, which the Workplace Relations Commission concluded its fifth and final hearing last night.
Mr Foley’s lawyer Anne O’Connell argued the company’s redundancy process was a predetermined “sham” because Mr Foley’s former line manager, head of the US sales team, should have faced redundancy himself risks of.
Instead, she said, the manager played a direct role throughout the process and eventually took over the complainant’s management responsibilities.
Digital River Group announced massive layoffs on July 19, 2022. But Mr Foley said his former line manager, the company’s former senior vice-president of sales, told him there would be “no more changes in Europe” that day – the court was told, and asked him to pass the message on to his direct reports .
“I had to bring the team together and reassure them they were safe,” Mr Foley told the court.
Mr Foley said that on August 29, 2022, he signed a retention bonus agreement, which he said was in recognition of his “continued service until March 31, 2023”.
WRC heard that just three weeks later, on September 21, the company told Mr Foley he was at risk of being made redundant. He said the massive reorganization of his sales team following mass layoffs was “sudden” and “unexpected.”
He was dismissed on October 19, 2022, after his offer for an alternative position was rejected after three consultation meetings, with the company upholding the dismissal on appeal.
The company’s barrister Alison Fynes BL, instructed by Andrew Pelly of US law firm GQ Littler, told Mr Foley that during the redundancy process he was told “time and time again” that the global sales team was being “flattened” as the company “Reevaluate its strategy based on changes that have occurred in previous months.”
“You are not willing to accept that response,” she said, a point she raised with him several times during yesterday’s cross-examination but which Mr Foley repeatedly denied.
“Throughout the entire consultation period, I didn’t get any answers as to why this was happening or what exactly was going on to cause the sales team to be flattened,” he said.
“I just don’t think, Mr. Foley, you and I are going to agree on this… You have a response and you just don’t like the response,” Ms. Fiennes said.
Asking Mr Foley about retention bonuses, Ms Fiennes told him businesses “can never provide ironclad guarantees that there will never be redundancies”.
“To paraphrase what you said yesterday, there are no guarantees,” she said.
“Related to —?” Mr. Foley asked.
“I think, like anything in this life; while an employer may want to do that, it can’t make a guarantee whether you accept the offer,” Ms. Fiennes said.
“Frankly, I don’t know if a company can guarantee that. However, I think a company can guarantee there won’t be layoffs. I don’t know if that’s a smart business choice, but I think they can,” Foley said. said Mr.
After further communication on this point, reviewer Jim Dolan stepped in and said, “Ms. Fiennes, would it be helpful if I answered this question for you?”
“That’s your business,” Ms. Fiennes said.
“Companies often make reassurances, listen carefully, there will be no compulsory redundancies, and if there are redundancies they will be voluntary redundancies. That’s fine for big companies, but small companies can’t put themselves in this situation,” he said . .
“Thank you, I appreciate it,” the lawyer said.
Mr Foley’s former manager did not attend the hearing and did not give evidence to the WRC, but the company’s HR director Becky Garroch, in-house assistant legal counsel Andrew Hedden and the executive team Another member of the group, Ted Rogers, both testified about the incident. Proceedings were first launched in September last year.
In her closing submissions, Ms Fiennes said there was “very clear evidence of redundancies” with the company cutting its global workforce from 648 to 382 in 2022, with 11 jobs lost at the Irish company .
“This was not Mr Foley’s personal decision but a necessary commercial decision in a difficult business environment,” she said, adding that the subsequent redundancy consultation and appeals process had been fair.
However, Ms O’Connell said: “There was never any evidence that this was necessary. Ted Rogers gave evidence that there was no financial need. We still don’t know why. There is speculation it was to do with conservation. [the line manager’s] role, but that’s just a guess because [my client] Still don’t know. “
She said the defendants had failed to prove there were genuine redundancies or that they acted reasonably in dismissing their clients.
“[The line manager] It should never have been part of a decision that made the complainant’s role redundant because he benefited from that decision,” she added.
In addition to the €168,682.09 figure provided to the WRC on 30 August 2023, the tribunal heard this week that Mr Foley is seeking further compensation to compensate for a continued reduction in income since taking up new employment.
He said his job at Digital River paid him a base salary of €170,000 per year, with the possibility of receiving the same base salary again if he received commissions from Digital River.
He said his new job also paid him a “50/50 variable” with a base salary of €130,000 and potential commissions of the same amount. However, he said that after joining the new company in September last year, he was in the “promotion” stage and did not receive any commissions in the first two months.
Ms Fynes argued that Mr Foley would receive a higher proportion of superannuation contributions in his new role and had previously lodged a complaint with Digital River over changes to its commission structure that affected his earnings.
Judge Jim Dolan ended the hearing last night and told the parties he hoped to have a decision in writing for them before Easter.
[ad_2]
Source link
