An employment tribunal has awarded a food delivery sales manager who was fired for working remotely in Egypt £61,000 for unfair dismissal.
Tanveer Shah was the UK field sales manager for Stoke-on-Trent-based Food Hub in 2021. He was required to spend at least four days a week in the field while coaching, mentoring and leading his team.
After a two-week holiday to Egypt, he tested positive for Covid-19 in the airport and was told he could not fly back to the UK. He then proceeded to work remotely from Egypt. His remote-working arrangements were discovered when it was noticed he had not claimed as many expenses as other employees expected to travel.
Simon Farmer was appointed Shah’s new line manager and discovered he had been out of the country outside of a time of authorised annual leave. Food Hub also implemented a policy change which required employees to purchase a car using a granted financial allowance. By February, Shah’s line manager discovered he had still not purchased a car.
Chief executive Ardian Mula arranged a review meeting in early 2022 and raised concerns about Shah not spending enough time in the field, giving him an ultimatum of two weeks to purchase a car.
In August, after Shah had bought a car, Mula invited him in for another meeting regarding his lack of expenses and remote working. In the meeting, Mula dismissed Shah, who appealed this and was reinstated, with a disciplinary process to follow. Shah was then dismissed for failing to follow a reasonable management request to work in the field.
An HR representative advised Mula that he should have followed the correct process, because Shah’s dismissal would be found unfair by an employment tribunal. Shah subsequently sued for unfair dismissal, which was upheld by the trial.
Employment judge David Maxwell said there were fundamental flaws in the investigation into Shah’s conduct.
He stated: “A business partner had recognised the initial dismissal by Mr Mula would almost certainly be found by a tribunal as unfair and set about organising a process that would appear fair but would achieve the same result. Shah was unable to say whether he had been in Egypt for days, a week or several weeks at the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022. Given [his bosses] would have expected him to be in the UK carrying out his duties, it was a surprising gap in [his] memory.”
Food Hub was contacted for comment prior to publication.
