Employers are being warned that leaving an employee out of a WhatsApp group could be classed as discrimination after a plumber was awarded £130,000 when he was off due to injury.
The ruling was awarded in favour of 60-year-old Mark Brosnan, who claimed he was discriminated against after missing work with a bad back.
Mr Brosnan complained that he was left out of a chat to communicate safety information.
A tribunal agreed that it was unjust, and Employment Judge Sarah George said employers must have good justification for not including people in work group chats, even if they are off sick.
Mr Brosnan was notified of his exclusion from a group chat in August, 2021, before resigning in December and complaining that the company, Coalo, owned by the London Borough of Hounslow, failed to pay full sick pay.
'No reason' for dismissal
Regarding his exclusion from the work group chat, Employment Judge George said: "It had been created to communicate important information to employees (including in relation to health and safety).
"He says he was told by the manager tasked with investigating his grievance that he was not added because he was absent.
"This provides positive evidence that the reason for this act was his sickness absence. [Coalo] has failed to demonstrate that excluding him was a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
"Some employers do not contact employees at all during sickness absence for risk of exacerbating their ill health or bothering them with work related matters at a time when they should be recuperating, but that cannot be presumed and in the absence of evidence put forward by [Coalo].
"I'm not satisfied that there was any justification for this."
Continuing, Employment Judge George added: "There was an ongoing failure to deal with his grievance which reasonably undermined his faith in his employer's willingness to seek to solve his problems.
"There was then a failure to respond to the information that he was fit to return to work and no attempts were made to have a discussion with him about what roles might be available.
"Whether individually or cumulatively these were breaches of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence entitling Mr Brosnan to resign in response and consider himself dismissed.
"That dismissal was unfair in all the circumstances - [Coalo] has not shown any reason for it."
Paying the price
Mr Brosnan was awarded £134,411 in compensation for the company's conduct.
That includes more than £25,000 in loss of future earnings.
Coalo was also forced to pay £15,000 in injury to feelings and £7,000 in personal injury.