A mother in England won over $250,000 in a settlement from her employer after they denied her request to reduce her hours so that she could pick up her daughter from daycare.
Alice Thompson was awarded £185,000, which is roughly $255,947, on August 12 after a judge made the decision in an employment tribunal case.
Thompson had asked her employers at a real estate agency if she could end her shift an hour early from her usual 9 am to 6 pm coverage so that she could have time to get her daughter from daycare. She also requested a four-day workweek, which was also denied.
Thompson claimed her requests were never “seriously considered” and her employer didn’t even offer her any other alternatives.
“If they needed me for the full hours, maybe eight ’til five instead of nine ’til six, that’s something I could have worked around. But it was shut down, every avenue, not listened to, not considered. And I was left with no other option but to resign,” she said.
In the United Kingdom, employees of at least 26 weeks have a right to ask employers for a flexible work schedule and get a decision back within three months.
Employers also have a right to refuse the request as long as they can prove their employee’s flexible working hours request will have a negative impact on the business’ success.
The employment tribunal determined that “The claimant resented that flexible working appeared not to be considered properly – as in our finding it was not – and felt that this was an injustice because of her sex, which it was,” leading to her payout for indirect discrimination.
