Following a policy to the letter is not the same as making a fair decision.

The situation

A Security Supervisor with seven years' service at Aberdeen Airport had accumulated absences over that period: a rotator cuff operation, two bouts of Covid, an eye injury, and a stomach bug. Her attendance triggered a review under the company's policy. At the meeting where dismissal was on the table, she mentioned for the first time that she might have reactive arthritis linked to repeated Covid infections. Her GP was looking into it. The company referred her to occupational healthAn independent medical service that employers use to assess how a health condition is affecting your ability to work. A referral to occupational health is not a step toward dismissal, but the report p.... Two weeks after the OH report came back, she was dismissed.

What the tribunal found

The dismissing manager had read the OH report as confirming no underlying health condition. It said no such thing. It said the claimant was unlikely to meet the Equality Act's definition of disabled. The manager had not noticed the difference. When asked at tribunal whether he had considered any alternatives to dismissal, he said he had. When pressed, he acknowledged he had checked whether the policy permitted alternatives. It did not. So he dismissed her. The tribunal described this as tunnel vision.

The first appeal was heard by a Divisional Director. The policy required a Managing Director. Nobody had checked.

The tribunal found unfair dismissalA legal claim you can bring if your employer dismissed you without a fair reason or without following a fair process. You normally need two years of continuous employment to qualify, though some dismi... and declined to reduce the award. The dismissing manager had applied the policy as a substitute for judgement, and the appeal process compounded the failure. The award was £45,129.