File photo Shutterstock / George Rudy Shutterstock / George Rudy / George Rudy

A WOMAN HAS been awarded €8,000 in compensation after losing her job as a store manager after just one month.

The woman in question had been employed as a store manager for a Dublin outlet of a small chain of shops. At the time, she had 10 years experience in the industry.

After just 34 days in her new employment, she was told by her boss that things “weren’t working out” and that she would have to be let go immediately.

At the time she was being paid a gross monthly sum of €2,000.

On 5 September 2017, just 27 days into the woman’s role, she was given feedback by her boss. The business is a family-run one, and the woman’s boss had hoped that she would be able to run the Dublin outlet with minimal supervision.

At that meeting, the woman was given feedback, both positive and negative. The negative feedback related to the woman’s performance with regard to customer service.

She was told that when a customer entered she should stop using the store laptop and immediately tend to the customer.

‘Ignoring customers’

After that meeting, the woman’s boss said that she had observed her employee repeatedly ignoring customers again via CCTV footage.

She felt that the woman had misrepresented her abilities as a manager.

Having let the woman go, the store owner paid her two weeks’ salary as a notice payment.

The woman subsequently took her case to the Workplace Relations Commission, claiming that the store’s actions towards her “very harsh”. She said that in 10 years of working in the industry she had never had any problems with other employers.

She said her dismissal had caused her “a great deal of stress and strain”. Responding to the suggestion that she was “a little reserved” when it came to pushing sales on customers, she said she stayed on the store laptop when customers arrived because she was on her own in the shop and had to prepare labels, and that in her experience “customers prefer a little time to themselves after coming into a shop”.

She said that at the very least she should be given another chance.

Adjudicating officer Roger McGrath, in considering the submissions of both parties, said that it was clear that the laws of natural justice had not applied.

He said that having considered the evidence he had concluded that the case was one of unfair dismissal.

He ordered the shop to pay the dismissed woman €8,000, or four months’ salary, in compensation.