Ireland's biggest tobacco distributor has been ordered to pay €40,000 after trying to press on with a performance improvement plan for a worker who said she was sick with the stress of the job.
Upholding a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, a Workplace Relations Commission adjudicator wrote that she did not consider it"appropriate" that the performance review that led to the improvement plan was done without any reassessment of targets set before the manager was instructed to take time off for stress by her doctor.
"I had always been busy. I took the responsibilities of the role seriously, but I started to have pressure in my chest, almost as though I was being sat on. I had increasing trouble sleeping – the thoughts of work, what had been done, what hadn’t been done, what should be done, kept me awake at night. It kept on building, kept on building," she said.
She took sick leave for the effects of stress in April 2021 and resumed with a six-week"phased return" to the office at the end of July that year, the WRC was told. Ms McGarry said her concerns with the review document that led to the PIP were"quashed" by management and she had to"put my head down and keep going".
"I realised I didn’t want to medicate to do my job, so to save myself and protect myself, I resigned, because no, I didn’t feel I had any other option because I didn’t want to relapse," Ms McGarry said.
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