E-Paper
Man wins ₹25 lakh payout after complaining about ‘low status’ desk in office
A UK estate agent, Nicholas Walker, won £21,411 after claiming his desk in office did not reflect his seniority.
An estate agent in the UK has won a £21,000 payout after complaining that his desk in office did not reflect his seniority.
Nicholas Walker, 53, resigned from Robsons Estate Agents in Hertfordshire claiming that his concerns about the position of his desk were not taken seriously. He then sued the company and was awarded £21,411 (over ₹25 lakh) in compensation for unfair constructive dismissal, Daily Mail reported.
Here’s what happened
Walker had been employed with Robsons Estate Agents since 2015. He had been the branch manager in Watford, Hertfordshire since 2017. In 2022, Walker was told he was being moved to Chorleywood, and the following year, he was told he was being moved back again.
Once he returned to the Watford branch, Walker was told he would share the branch manager role with a junior colleague, Matthew Gooder.
Gooder had already moved to the back desk by the time Walker returned. Walker was told he would have to sit in the middle desk – but the 53-year-old took issue with this order, claiming it did not reflect his seniority.
Upset over desk position
A tribunal heard that the back desk had a “practical and symbolic” significance as it was always used by the branch manager.
Walker told the tribunal he was “upset” about being asked to use the middle desk, as that would indicate that he was only an “assistant manager”.
Walker messaged his boss, Daniel Young, “I am not going back... and sitting in the middle”. The issue soon escalated into Walker resigning from his position.
However, when cooler heads prevailed and he tried to take back his resignation two days later, Young did not return Walker’s call. Instead, he brought forward the day of his leaving.
What the tribunal judged
The tribunal concluded in March that Walker had been correct in viewing the desk change as a “demotion”.
According to a report in The Independent, Judge Reindorf KC said: “From [Mr Walker’s] point of view, finding out that Mr Gooder was sitting at the back desk and he would be sitting at the middle desk amounted to being told that he would be assistant manager and Mr Gooder would be branch manager.
“This was a logical conclusion for him to draw in circumstances where communication with him about the logistics of the Rickmansworth move had been poor.”
“Either becoming assistant manager or becoming joint manager with Mr Gooder would have amounted to a demotion by comparison to the role he was performing at Chorleywood and that which he had performed at Rickmansworth previously, since at both offices he had been the sole manager in charge of the branch,” the judgement added.
