Pointing out that an employee’s work is messy and full of mistakes is not harassment, a tribunal has ruled.
Bosses need to be able to identify workers’ weaknesses in an attempt to improve their performance, an employment judge said.
Claiming that such criticism is discriminatory is unreasonable, the panel said.
The ruling came in the case of an HR manager who claimed to have been “devastated, hurt and profoundly upset” after his boss told him his work was messy and needed improvement.
Thomas Shevlin said that any errors were as a result of his ADHD and that Rebecca Roycroft’s comments had left him “humiliated and ashamed”, accusing her of discrimination and harassment. The tribunal disagreed, however.
Employment judge David Massarella said: “The making of spelling and grammar errors in professional documents is, self-evidently, a weakness.
“We are satisfied that Ms Roycroft’s intention or purpose in making the comment was exclusively directed at assisting [Mr Shevlin] to improve and to eliminate a relatively minor weakness in his performance.
“We consider that [his] response, and that sense of grievance, to be unjustified having regard these anodyne comments. In our judgment, there was no unfavourable treatment.
“If a manager cannot be explicit about a weakness in performance, there is a risk that an entirely well meant warning will not be taken onboard by the employee.”
The hearing in eastLondonwas told Shevlin started working as a senior HR operations manager at publishing firm John Wiley & Sons in May 2022.
The tribunal heard he had ADHD and dyslexia traits but did not disclose that to his employers.
In May 2023, in an assessment of his progress, Roycroft wrote: “When Thomas is very busy he has a tendency to rush the work which he is doing, which can culminate in typos in emails, use of capitals when they shouldn’t be as well sentences that don’t make sense.
“As his manager I am generally okay with this, as I know it is because he is super busy and is rushing to get on to the next thing. However, I don’t think this is good for his personal brand when dealing with stakeholders from across the globe as it can be seen as messy work.”
Shevlin resigned having already secured another job and then sued John Wiley for disability discrimination.
At the tribunal he claimed that his quitting was prompted by Roycroft’s comments.
“We think that unlikely,” the tribunal said. “In short, Ms Roycroft’s comments do not begin to approach the very high threshold for harassment.”