A marketing executive says she quit Coca Cola’s Irish arm over the stress of returning from maternity leave as she felt she was being “bullied” into taking what she regarded as a demotion from a management job to “nearly a graduate position”.
Lisa Deveney told the Workplace Relations Commission on Thursday that she thought she was going to return to her old job as premium spirits marketing manager, which she had held since 2018, at the end of maternity leave in January.
She said she suffered an “acute stress reaction” after her colleagues were told the worker who covered her absence would keep her old job – leaving her to take up what she said was “quite a junior position” in another department.
Ms Deveney was giving evidence to a hearing into her complaints under the Employment Equality Act 1998, the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994 and the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against Coca Cola HBC Ireland Ltd, which were opened this morning before the employment tribunal.
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Her barrister, Cillian McGovern BL, instructed by Aaron McKenna Solicitors, said his client suffered less favourable treatment compared with the employee who had been brought in as maternity leave cover and was “left in that position”.
“She should have returned to that position,” Mr McGovern said.
The employer denies the statutory complaints. Mary Fay BL, appearing for Coca Cola instructed by Arthur Cox solicitors, told the WRC the job Ms Deveney previously occupied had “just grown to such an extent it would not be reasonable to expect one person to do all the duties” and that the position had to be “split”.
Ms Deveney’s evidence was that she had been absent for one year and 21 days on the day she was to go back to work on 22 January this year, owing to pregnancy-related health issues.
She said the first she was told she would not be going back in as premium spirits marketing manager was at the end of a call the Friday afternoon before her return with the director of her division and her line manager, Johnny Scott.
“I was a bit nervous about going back. There hadn’t been anything set up,” Ms Deveney said. She said she felt Mr Scott “had something to tell me that he didn’t want to” on the call. When she asked at the end of the conversation what he wanted her key objectives to be, she said Mr Scott’s response was: “Oh, about that. You won’t be returning to your role. We’re looking for you to return to a new role.”
“He didn’t know the [job] title at the time. I thought at the time it sounded like a demotion,” Ms Deveney said.
She said the position outlined to her by Mr Scott involved a move to a bigger department and would put her reporting to a manager. Her evidence was that in her pre-maternity leave job she reported to director level in the organisation.
“He said it would be good experience,” Ms Deveney said.
The complainant said her response was: “Listen I’m not going to throw my toys out of the pram,” and that she asked for the job specification. “Obviously, I’m pretty side-balled. I thought I was getting my job back,” she said.
She said Mr Scott told her they would sit down and discuss the position when she was back in the office on Monday, January 2nd. The complainant said she expected to see a job spec to review over the weekend, but that this was not forthcoming and that Mr Scott told her on her first day back he was “too busy”.
Ms Deveney said the next time she and Mr Scott spoke was at a wider team meeting at 3.30pm that same day. “Johnny started the call and said it was brilliant that I was back, that I was taking the premium spirits role and moving to [the other] team.”
“Nobody seemed surprised or asked a question. It seemed like everyone knew this was happening,” Ms Deveney said.
“I assumed it was going to be a conversation, not a done deal – obviously it was,” she said.
After the meeting she spoke to Mr Scott and told him she was unhappy, as she had not even seen the job specification at that point and again voiced her view that it was a demotion based on what he had told her, she said.
Mr Scott’s response was that it was “meaty”, that “nobody cared about titles or reporting structures” and that her salary package was not changing, she said.
She said what “struck” her from the job spec for the new proposed role was that it sought “three-plus years” working “in a marketing department”. She had “over 16 years experience in premium spirit marketing” and that experience as a marketing manager had been required to qualify for her original post.
“There’s a vast difference in experience,” she said. “The ask of three years’ experience: that could be nearly a graduate position – for me that’s quite a junior position,” Ms Deveney said.
She added that the new job duties concerned “activating” brand plans developed elsewhere, but her old posts had involved “brand strategy and developing the brand”.
However, she said she had to ask another colleague on the Tuesday to “hold off” on sending an email to the new team, telling her that she was “not accepting the position”.
“I felt I was bullied into taking a role,” she said.
Ms Deveney said she suffered a panic attack on the evening of Tuesday 23rd January and called in sick for the following day. She did not return to work prior to tendering her resignation in March this year, the tribunal was told.
Ms Deveney was cross-examined on her evidence-in-chief by Ms Fay, for the employer, who put it to her that Mr Scott would give a different account of certain aspects of their conversations.
Counsel put it to her it was “not reasonable” to form a subjective view that the proposed job was a demotion without discussing it further with Mr Scott.
“I believe the job was a demotion,” Ms Deveney said.
Having heard Ms Deveney’s evidence in full, adjudicator Patricia Owens adjourned the matter. The employer is expected to present witness evidence at a resumed date early in the new year.
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