Hermit Road
7:05 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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If you own a business, you are aiming to make a profit and you are responsible for the risk. You have a basic entitlement to determine the hours of opening that you think will maximise your profit and minimise your risk.
The idea that your hours of opening should be determined by when an employee wants to work is ridiculous and she wouldn't have won a penny if the company had gone about it on this basis. Their arrogance prevented them from going about it properly so they lost. Given what the owner said to another employee about her, they deserved to lose.
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El Scorchio
7:02 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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Why would her starting earlier even have to affect anyone else? Why would the whole business have to change?
it would hardly be a massive stretch to give her a set of keys and have her open their office an hour earlier than usual. No-one else need be affected in the slightest. As mentioned by someone else, they get an extra hour of business out of it for basically no cost.
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Hermit Road
6:56 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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She was entitled to ask for the whole business to open one hour earlier than they have always done, and the business was entitled to say no. They just needed to do it properly and not react in a way which gave her license to sue.
There is no way she would have won purely on the basis that the business had long standing opening hours that it wasn't prepared to change for one employee.
For what it's worth both parties sound like a piece of work.
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Come On You Irons
6:42 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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One can argue that the company was inflexible and that all they had to do was deny the request properly in a formal letter from HR, but to me the woman is a snake.
Most employees, particularly those supposedly on £160k (this came from Block, so take it with a pinch of salt) would just suck it up and find childcare for an hour or two in the evening. Not resign and then sue their former employer for "sex discrimination".
Companies have NO obligation to change their working hours to accommodate every Tom, Dick or Harry (or in this case Tina, Diane or Harriet) working for them.
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Passerby66
6:32 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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The company behaved disgracefully and got exactly what they deserved. She was not asking for some sort of special "unique snowflake" treatment, she just wanted to start work an hour earlier and finish it an hour earlier so she could pick up her kid from school and any normal employer would have said no problem and continued to have a high-performing employee working for them.
Loving all the old geriatrics that were terrified of covid think that this request is so unreasonable!
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El Scorchio
6:21 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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Fair play to her. Sounds like the company handled a pretty reasonable and basic request idiotically.
Even if she wasn't well liked by her employer which made it a factor, it's absolute basics that said employer shouldn't go slagging off said member of staff to other members of staff.
Deserves to shell out the money just from being an idiot.
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ChesterRd
6:06 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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Raising children is not a "women's problem" and it would have been the same issue if it had been a father making the request.
My male boss takes his kids to school and picks them up from the after school club. That means when we have meetings etc the rest of us are respectful of those arrangements because being intelligent and emotionally mature grown ups we know that a 5 year old can't just hop on a bus home and let themselves in. Likewise few couples these days have the financial resources to allow a full time stay at home parent. It is clear from some of the responses that not all users of WHO have grasped these very basic reasons why parents do need some flexibility.
She had worked there 10 years, not 10 weeks. The flexibility she was asking for did not seem outrageous. No one is going to convince me that an Estate Agency is not able to function prior to 9am. In fact, many clients of EA would welcome being able to communicate prior to 9am if they themselves have to start work at 9am.
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Crassus
5:44 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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Well it is obviously the employers fault
Should not have taken her on in the first place - bet he has learned his lesson
A small provincial office is not the publicly funded NHS or BBC
She took the job, at agreed hours, has a baby and then wants to change it all to suit herself
From the subsequent complaints that she lost, she is clearly an entitled rotter
Just had it with a bloody administrator at our place, dopey blurt took an office based roll and then decided within 6 weeks that she would work from home - tarrah Petal
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Hermit Road
5:01 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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In this case I blame the company.
The law exists and they thought they were above it. Their arrogance prevented going through the motions and given the pretence that they considered her request but couldn’t agree for business reasons.
An hour’s worth of work and a well written response would have saved them all this hassle.
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Block
4:59 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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Her salary with commission combined, lufbra.
Her personality doesn't come into it, the company acted like cunts because she was a woman. So much so they were fined.
She'll be fine, and likely to get a job in an agency where she's more supported.
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lufbra iron
4:57 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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£160k???
difficulty to believe if i'm honest.
if true, £185k payout is not a disaster for the company.
and i'm not having it that she was only disliked for being pregnant or having a baby. other motives in play for sure
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Block
4:57 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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Bournemouth? FFS.
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Mike Oxsaw
4:55 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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if the office is open 9-5...
Big fucking IF, there.
Not that hard to change the opening hours on a web page so that any potential customers understand.
Not that hard to open the office earlier, either; how many sales in that extra hour are needed to justify the costs?
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Block
4:55 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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No, I don't know her, BTW.
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Block
4:54 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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Her salary was circa £160,000, from what I'd heard on the radio about it, she's based in Bournemouth so she'd have to be very good at her job to earn that sort of doe.
I'm not talking about her personality, just taking about the fact she was disliked due to being a pregnant woman.
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lufbra iron
4:51 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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having a baby doesn't excuse you from behaving like an entitled cunt
he even moved a New York trip to accommodate her pregnancy and she still managed to make it all about her.
Its cost his company a few quid but i sense he's well rid of it.
she's clearly a cunt mate and unless you know her, hard to conclude from that article that 'shes clearly a very good estate agent'
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Fifth Column
4:48 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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On some points like the New York thing she sounds like a self absorbed arse.
At the same time, regardless of the rights and wrongs, the company needs to understand the law. If it had engaged properly with her to discuss potential for flexible working and refused giving reasonable grounds for doing so then they wouldn't have been found liable. It shows how poorly run many companies are.
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Block
4:47 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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There director clearly had an axe to grind, as she was a woman who has had a baby.
As I said earlier, the director spoke to a colleague and berated himself for employing her in the first place because she was a married woman of a certain age.
Why do you think Estate Agency is such a male dominated industry?
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lufbra iron
4:44 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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if she was that good they would flex for her Block
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Block
4:42 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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lufbra iron 4:24 Wed Sep 8
Wrong, she's clearly a very good Estate Agent, and the company are fucking idiots for how they've handled this.
She'd walk into pretty much any agency she wishes to.
Why should she be stigmatised for being a woman who's had a baby? Her results speak for themselves.
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Wils
4:41 Wed Sep 8
Re: Female estate agent 'refused' flexible working wins a six figure payout
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She is entitled to flexible working. Everyone is these days.
But reading that article it looks like her relationship with the firm had broken down for other reasons.
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