The US technology company PluralSight has been instructed to compensate an Irish sales director with €112,000 due to its handling of her job loss amidst a wave of employee reductions in 2022. The verdict was published on Tuesday by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), following an appeal under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 lodged by Pluralsight Ireland Ltd’s Gráinne Sherlock against the company.
Since becoming part of a commercial team in Dublin in June 2019, Sherlock saw a steady progression in her career within the US-based edtech firm, culminating in her promotion to director of the global small and medium businesses (SMB) sales team a year after she was made a manager in April 2021. She received a basic wage of €94,800, with additional performance-related bonuses and commission, as detailed by her legal counsel during the trial.
The WRC learned that in 2022, the firm’s leadership reached the tough choice to reorganise and slim down its workforce by 20%, which affected 254 employees in the US and nine in Ireland. Sherlock’s role and all EU-based SMB sales teams were announced in December of the same year to be integrated into the Dublin commercial team, according to the information shared at the tribunal.
Ciarán Ahern of McInnes Dunne Murphy, Sherlock’s representative, argued that her redundancy resulted from a schemed process that was arranged to ensure she was chosen, which the company and its attorneys strongly denied.
Sherlock expressed that she frequently felt neglected and left out of the Dublin office as there was tension between the Dublin commercial team and the SMB team over the allocation of deals. In the reshuffled team, which comprised Sherlock’s position and all SMB sales teams across Europe, it was announced in December 2022 that only five out of the remaining eight superior roles would be preserved for the next year.
Mark Wynne, the firm’s Senior VP of Sales for Europe, Middle East, and Asia (EMEA), defended the company and described any claims that the SMB unit were commandeering sales prospects from the commercial department as “impractical.”
In Mr Wynne’s view, any issues concerning SMB thresholds were not targeted at Ms Sherlock, and he was unaware of any allegations of ill-will towards the claimant until he saw the legal submissions of her solicitors. He disputed the allegation that the selection process had been manipulated to favour certain candidates.
Cris Santos, the firm’s Vice-President of Revenue, Strategy, and Operations, testified that the redundancy procedure was no different from earlier restructuring exercises, although it was larger and globally oriented this time. Responding to accusations of bias, Ms Santos affirmed her absolute objectivity to the WRC.
Niamh McGowan BL, barrister for the company and under the instruction of A&L Goodbody LLP, contended that PluralSight faced significant economic hurdles in 2022, necessitating staff reductions, and that a justified redundancy process had been implemented.
Adjudicator Kara Turner, however, was unconvinced by the evidence supporting any allegedly hostile and exclusionary behaviour from Mr Wynne towards the claimant. She did, however, express concern over the lack of clear information regarding who had made the decision to integrate the SMB sales team into the commercial function. Turner questioned the objectivity of the selection criteria, specifically the heavy emphasis on interview performance over past performance.
Turner pointed out that the company failed to show the claimant’s place in the selection process or whether her evaluation was fair in comparison to other candidates. Additionally, the company’s refusal to disclose Ms Sherlock’s post-interview ranking and the failure to consider or discuss her request for an extension of the consultation period undermined its claim of conducting an “open and transparent” process.
Ms Turner took note of the disagreement regarding the computation of Ms Sherlock’s financial losses when determining the compensation amount. She recognised that Ms Sherlock earned a total of €183,573.07 in the year 2022 as mentioned by the Workplace Relations Commission. This consisted of a gross salary of €94,800 and an additional €62,200 earned through commission after accomplishing all her sales goals.
When figuring out the financial losses experienced by Ms Sherlock, Ms Turner was instructed to factor in cash equity remunerations as well as the €20,000 performance-related bonus that Ms Sherlock received in 2022, which was due in March of 2023 and 2024.
Furthermore, Ms Sherlock’s legal team argued that she had missed out on share options that would have been provided to her in four yearly instalments starting from April of the previous year.
In her findings, Ms Turner declared that Ms Sherlock’s efforts to secure new employment were valid and determined that the company should compensate the financial losses incurred by the employee for a duration of 13 months from February 2024 to March 2024, taking into account her base salary and commission.
The final compensation amount took into account a deduction of 15 weeks’ salary to reflect the time Ms Sherlock spent in a probationary role in 2023 and a 50% reduction was applied for the last five months of the reckoning period, as Ms Turner deemed that Ms Sherlock’s effort in job hunting was not as relentless and persistent as it had been just after her redundancy.
However, Ms Turner did affirm that Ms Sherlock could demand the €20,000 bonus and a cash equity sum of €6,775 from 2023, but not the stock options. The gross compensation granted in the legal proceeding amounted to €112,000.