A real estate sales manager in the U.K. who claims her employer didn’t seriously consider her request for flexible work hours has won a lawsuit against them.
After Alice Thompson returned from maternity leave, she asked her employer, Manors real estate agency, if she could work shorter hours. She wanted to leave at 5pm instead of 6pm, so she could pick up her daughter from daycare, and she also asked to switch to a four-day work week.
Her boss wasn’t on board with her plan, denied her request and failed to make a counter offer, according to Thompson. So she resigned from her job in December 2019 and then struggled to find work after the COVID lockdown. The mom then spent thousands pursuing a case against her former employer and an employment tribunal judge ruled that she suffered indirect sex discrimination because the agency refused to consider her request for flexibility.
Thompson was awarded $254-thousand after what she calls “a long, exhausting journey.” She says she was motivated to pursue the legal challenge to change the future for working women. “How are moms meant to have careers and families? It’s 2021 not 1971,” she says. “I’ve got a daughter and I didn’t want her to experience the same treatment in 20, 30 years’ time, when she’s in the workplace.”
Source:BBC