A software company’s “policy” of never giving employment references in writing “contributed” to a salesman’s loss of earnings when he was left out of work following his unfair dismissal, a tribunal has found.
Giving evidence to the WRC in February this year, the Chief Executive of TripAdmit, John Maguire, said that due to a combination of a lack of funding and investment it had “reduced headcount” from 14 to 7 – with the complainant, Mr D’Amato, being the first to go.
“Admittedly the termination reason as per the notice of termination could have been worded better, however given the conversations … in our opinion it was clearly communicated that his performance needed to improve,” Mr Maguire said.
However, Mr D’Amato said: “The line manager didn’t mention sales performance. Basically, the customers using the TripAdmit software were not generating enough revenue – that’s the wording in the letter. That’s the essential point in all this – he’s telling me the customers aren’t making money. It’s not because I was not hitting the target.”
Mr D’Amato said his termination letter read: “Unfortunately we have to let you go because the performance of your customers, they’re not what we want.” “He never said you are under warning, in any shape or form. I regard myself as professional in any sense, I regard myself as a fluent English speaker, so if we ever had a chat about it, I would understand. I never received a formal warning in any shape.”
Addressing the calculation of his financial losses from dismissal, Mr D’Amato said he was still out of work at the time of the hearing last February and that his former employer “will not give him a written reference”.
The Adjudicating Officer found that respondent TripAdmit “contributed to the complainant, Mr D’Amato’s loss of earnings by refusing to provide a written reference without any justification”. However, he added it would be “unreasonable” to presume that Mr D’Amato’s ongoing loss of earnings would continue for a full two years, the upper limit of his jurisdiction, and limited the award to one year’s salary.
He awarded Mr D’Amato €42,000 for his losses.
This decision highlights the risk around employer references. While the case clearly demonstrated that the reason for dismissal of the employee was unfair, the Adjudicating Officer’s decision to attribute some loss of earnings to the complainant as a result of a failure to provide a reference is noteworthy.
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