An award-winning saleswoman has won a maternity discrimination case after her new female boss ‘laughed’ at her when she said she wanted her job back.
High-flying Sarah Lindup had an agreement that she would return to her lucrative job in a top sales team after she came back to work following the birth of her daughter, a tribunal heard.
But while on maternity leave, Ms Lindup – who won accolades for earning the company £1.3 million in less than a year – had her role taken away from her.
New sales director Jayde Stott called Ms Lindup, for what she referred to as a ‘mum-to-mum chat’, and informed her she would not be returning to the sales team.
Ms Lindup said that Ms Stott ‘laughed’ at the idea of her returning to the same post as if it was a ‘ludicrous idea’.
It was heard that the decision had ‘disastrous personal consequences’ for Ms Lindup as it caused her income to drop from £65,000 per year to £24,000.
Manchester Employment Tribunal has now ruled Ms Lindup was discriminated against and that she is in line for compensation.
It found Ms Stott’s behaviour ‘very significantly undermined’ Ms Lindup, who had begun working for Bright HR as a business software consultant in 2020.
In June 2021, due to her high performance, she was promoted to the ‘web team’, a sought-after team within the HR provider because they earned the most commission.
Ms Lindup told the tribunal she earned around four times her £22,000 salary in commission at Bright HR.
At around the same time, she became pregnant and went on maternity leave eight months later in February 2022.
In May 2022, she attended the Manchester-based company’s awards ceremony at Hotel Football in Old Trafford.
She was given two awards for her ‘notably high sales performance’ and being a ‘highly valued team member’.
Ms Lindup received the ‘millionaire award’ for earning the HR organisation £1.3 million in the previous year – without even working the full 12 months.
Whilst on maternity leave, the saleswoman had it confirmed verbally and in writing that she would be returning to the web team.
However, at the same time, the head of sales transferred to Canada and was replaced by Ms Stott, who had previously worked at Deliveroo’s head office.
Ms Stott met with Ms Lindup in October to discuss her impending return to work and when the saleswoman raised the issue of her returning to the same team, the tribunal heard that the senior manager batted it away.
Ms Lindup told the tribunal: ‘She laughed as though my returning to the web team was a ludicrous idea.’
The tribunal found it ‘striking’ that the senior manager continually referred to the meeting as a ‘mum-to-mum chat’ despite it being a formal meeting.
In November, Ms Lindup returned to work, beginning with two weeks on the ‘business restart team’ to get back up to speed.
However, at the end of this period, she was not returned to the web team and was instead put on the ‘partnership team’.
This meant she was given ‘lower quality’ data, which did not give her a chance to re-establish her ‘superior sales talent’.
Employment Judge Abigail Holt found that Ms Lindup’s ‘anger and resentment’ at the way she felt she was being dealt with had impacted her performance as well as her anxiety about the financial consequences.
The tribunal heard that the monetary aspect was particularly key as Ms Lindup had moved to a bigger house during her maternity leave with a higher rent.
The saleswoman said her income, combining her base salary and commission, had dropped from £65,000 before her absence to £24,000.
Judge Holt concluded that Ms Stott had ‘made up her mind’ about Ms Lindup’s role whilst she was still on maternity leave.
This then had ‘disastrous personal consequences’ for the saleswoman’s financial situation.
She said: ‘We find that [Ms] Stott was not prepared to enter into a discussion with [Ms Lindup] and had made up her mind regarding [her] future position on the web team i.e. that she was not going to return to the web team.
‘We find that [Ms Stott’s] manner was deliberately defensive and potentially insensitive.
‘It is therefore likely that she came across as uncooperative and obstructive, impatient and insensitive about [Ms Lindup’s] position…
‘[Ms Lindup] was treated unfavourably, with disastrous personal consequences for her income, on the basis of the decision made [in October] that she would not be allowed back onto the web team.
‘This was intimately connected to her maternity leave because the decision was apparently made in what Ms Stott repeatedly characterised as a ‘mum-to-mum chat’.
‘In Ms Stott’s mind [she] does not seem to have been a sales executive going through a return-to-work meeting.
‘It seemed that Ms Stott saw [her] as a ‘mum’ and arrangements regarding fundamental issues to do with her employment and potential remuneration were ‘chat’.
‘This is a very significant undermining or degrading of [Ms Lindup’s] employment status.’
Ms Lindup, whose daughter is now three, has since left the company.
Her compensation will be decided at a later date.
