The Fair Work Commission has rejected a long-serving employee's bullying claim, after accepting that her employer took reasonable management action when it performance-managed her after she resisted changes to workplace practices.
Commissioner Tim Lee in a ruling issued yesterday said the issues raised by the Salvation Army Employment Plus job placement consultant in her bullying claim "are reasonable management action undertaken in a reasonable manner".
He said the consultant particularly objected to a change that involved her seeking to place in jobs clients from the full "rainbow" of applicants, rather than just the "generally job ready" clients she had dealt with in her nine years with the organisation.
She told the Commission at a hearing in April that the change meant she was now required to deal with stream four clients who "may be somebody who is recently out of prison and they have drug issues, mental health issues, schizophrenia, they are considered not job-ready".
The consultant refused to deal with the stream four clients, claiming it was unsafe, but Commissioner Lee, after considering evidence including a recent Worksafe inspection, said he was satisfied there was no such risk.
Commissioner Lee said the change in client mix, alongside the employer's new approach to performance management, "is a major driver" of the consultant making the bullying claim.
She claimed she was being unreasonably performance managed and micro-managed.
He said the consultant was "deeply distressed that her refusal to service 'stream 4' clients was the basis for the finding [in a performance assessment] that she was not meeting the values of the organisation".
The organisation gave her a score of 57 out of 100 in her most recent assessment, against an average across all employees of 62, marking her down for failing to service the stream four clients.
Commissioner Lee said that it was "not unreasonable" for her refusal to "become a matter of note in her performance appraisal", given that it was part of her position description.
He said Employment Plus had in the past failed to assess individual performance but while its introduction had been "a significant change" for the consultant, "the manner in which it has been introduced or administered does not appear to be unreasonable."
Organisation shifting from "moribund" to "performance focussed"
Commissioner Lee said the organisation had shifted from "a long period of moribund management to an environment where the organisation is performance focussed".
"However, while this represents a significant change in her working environment, the fact that it occurred and the method of its implementation did not amount to bullying".
Commissioner Lee said the change within Employment Plus was a response to the Salvation Army seeking to implement, according to "witness B7", a "high performance culture" to turn around losses that meant the job agency was being subsidised.
Commissioner Lee said from witness B7 "provides an insight into the rapidly changing work environment" the consultant faced.
"She was forced to adjust to a more active management after a lengthy period of the organisation managing her and her colleagues very poorly.
"However, while this was a change that had a personal impact on the [consultant], particularly with the high turnover, there is no evidence that the approach taken amounted to bullying behaviour directed at the [consultant], particularly given the evidence of the timely replacement of vacancies in the organisation."