Woman awarded €45,000 after man got job ahead of her

meeeeh

WhatNowForUs? wrote: »

But it was accountancy in an Engineering Firm.

So? I work in an engineering firm and deal with a lot of other engineering companies. There are very few men I deal with in accounts department. There is almost complete divide, sales are almost all men and accounts almost all women.

Sleepy

SeventySix wrote: »

I would say you are best off not making assumptions at all. Its not discriminatory to set out that the job requires an amount of flexibility and overtime and that failure to live up to that means demotion, once that is the terms given to all workers at that level. There is no need to actively mention childcare. By making the assumption you are not giving the person any chance at all. Perhaps they are very career focused and the extra pay from the promotion leaves them able to have more flexible childcare. Maybe with the new job their over half will be able to stay at home.

Or maybe they'll continue the way they've worked to date and you'll end up having to demote them, risking litigation and incurring more disruption to the business while you train up someone else to take the position you've just trained them to do.

In a large organisation that may not be any more than a minor headache, in a small company though that could be extremely damaging to the health of the business.

Another drawback in the example you gave is potentially never promoting the woman as there are always younger, up and comers that are staying around the clock as they have nowhere else they have to be. Will eventually her extra experience be enough? If she feels constantly passed over for promotion it will lead to a lot of resentment and you will potentially loose a good employee on the assumption that you made that she wouldnt be flexible enough for occassional travel. Is it worth it? Also I would never judge an employee on how long they stay, but on the amount of work they get done. I have know a lot of people that might be here all hours, but achieve the same or less than those that work their hours - sometimes cos they are just not as good at their job, and sometimes cos they spend loads of time faffing about and have to stay late to make it up

Isn't it interesting that the hypothetical example I gave was of a man who couldn't meet such demands for OT and travel flexibility yet, even here in TLL, your social conditioning to assume it would be a woman in such a position (which to be fair is far more common in Ireland) led you to flip the genders in your reply?

I'd agree that working hours are a poor indicator of performance but in most private sector businesses, unpaid overtime is par for the course these days and an inability to do it will damage your career prospects as you'll never be able to match the output of the more career focused colleagues who are prepared to do the work. I'd argue length-of-service is an equally poor indicator of performance/competence tbh. In the vast majority of positions, 20 years experience provides little advantage over someone who's done the job for 5-10 years so no, extra experience would never be enough to compensate for a lack of career focus.

Someone feeling constantly passed over for promotion has to ask themselves (or seek feedback) as to why it is they're constantly being passed over. If the answer is down to a poor personal relationship with their boss then perhaps leaving the company is the best thing for them. If it's down to discrimination, then by all means, they should seek legal recourse (though tbh, given the damage taking such an action does to future prospects with other companies, leaving without causing a fuss might still be in their best interests) if, however, it's down to the fact that they can't meet the demands of the higher positions due to a family focus, they simply need to learn to live with that. Personally speaking, even as the sole earner in our family, I know my choice to be home to put my children to bed at least most nights damages my career prospects. That's fine by me though, it's my choice and I'm happy to live with the repercussions of that decision.

lazygal

Me and my husband have made work adjustments since having a child. He knows leaving work on time, refusing to work abroad and not doing the work socializing is not good for his career, but right now he's happy to trade off the possibility of promotion for time at home in the evenings. He also saw a lot of his male friends put everything into their careers, to the expense of home life, and end up being made redundant anyway - the unpaid overtime they were doing ended up being worthless. My job wouldn't be quite as flexible in terms of hours but there's other benefits that mean I can be at home a bit. I'll more than likely take an unpaid career break after the second one is born. I'm not particularly ambitious career wise at the moment, I worked really hard from my teens onwards to get where I am and I'm happy to plateau for a while.

I know even though its unspoken that being out on ML once again isn't doing me any favours with the top brass, but as I said my career isn't the main focus of my life right now. I've also seen plenty of women come into their own career wise when their children were older so I don't think there's as many barriers in front of parents as some might think.

oldyouth

Does anyone ever consider the fact that, sometimes, an employer might decide to employ candidate A over candidate B regardless of experience, qualifications or sex????

lazygal

oldyouth wrote: »

Does anyone ever consider the fact that, sometimes, an employer might decide to employ candidate A over candidate B regardless of experience, qualifications or sex????

I think that points been made on this thread several times.

meeeeh

oldyouth wrote: »

Does anyone ever consider the fact that, sometimes, an employer might decide to employ candidate A over candidate B regardless of experience, qualifications or sex????

Yes but the process has to be fair. Not doctoring the answers is a good start. Let's be honest it's easy enough to steer the selection process in the way to favour one candidate. The questions and qualifications sought can be tailored to suit one person and unless you pick somebody who is completely unsuitable you should be ok. I find some arguments that the woman who didn't get a job a bit silly. But I also think it's a very valid point that someone who had trouble passing necessary exams shouldn't be chosen. What if we start choosing doctors in the same way. Sure he/she has trouble getting some qualifications but people like him/her more. Who would you prefer to be treated by? somebody who gets on with the coworkers or someone who is good at what they do. And btw bad accountant can cause plenty of damage.

Carlos Orange

Newaglish wrote: »

Interesting one here - a woman has successfully sued her employer after losing out in an interview to a less qualified male counterpart. On the surface it seems to be fair enough, but there are a few things which I thought were strange, in particular:

I find it strange that there were 2 people and 2 jobs but she only applied for 1 of them. I guess she assumed she had it in the bag.

http://www.equalitytribunal.ie/Database-of-Decisions/2013/Employment-Equality-Decisions/DEC-E2013-054-Full-Case-Report.html