A senior property manager sued her bosses for discrimination because they didn’t send her a WhatsApp on her one-year anniversary at the company.
Rita Nunn said she felt ‘overlooked’ after she did not receive a congratulatory text on the work group chat at HEM estate management, an employment tribunal heard.
This was despite bosses acknowledging other anniversaries in the chat, but they claimed they stopped the tradition after other staff ‘complained about the large volume of messages being sent’.
But Ms Nunn still sued the estate management company for pregnancy discrimination over the matter as she told them she was pregnant two months earlier.
She added other members of staff had received a congratulatory message in that summer, but bosses insisted they were for ‘exceptional’ cases.
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Her claims have now been thrown out by an employment judge who said Ms Nunn was not treated unfavourably and such messages were ‘not an entitlement’.
The tribunal, held in South London, was told that Ms Nunn started working at HEM estate management in August 2022.
She told the company she was pregnant in June 2023 and her one-year anniversary working there was in August 2023.
The panel heard that in July 2023, another member of staff had received a ‘congratulatory’ message on a WhatsApp group marking her one-year work anniversary.
Ms Nunn, then 34, sued her employers for pregnancy discrimination and age discrimination.
The panel heard that the occasional anniversary message was sent after July 2023, but often only in ‘exceptions’ such as an employee who was celebrating 20 years of service.
It was also heard that a message celebrating an employee’s three year anniversary had been ‘sent in error’ in September 2023.
The judgement said: ‘The 11 August 2023 was Ms Nunn’s “work anniversary” – the anniversary of her start work date.
‘No congratulatory message was sent out to her on the office WhatsApp group.
‘A colleague whose work anniversary was on 9 August 2023 also received no message. I find this was because of the policy change in messaging referred to above.’
Ms Nunn’s boss told the panel that after that message, the staff member who was celebrating her anniversary had ‘complained about the large volume of messages being sent on the group’.
They said: ‘As a result the directors decided no longer to mark work anniversaries and to restrict celebratory messages to birthdays.’
Employment Judge Nicholas Cox said: ‘The failure to send Ms Nunn a work anniversary congratulatory message was not unfavourable treatment.
‘First, the sending of such messages was not an entitlement.
‘It was an additional, non-financial benefit, or to put it another way, more favourable treatment, which had been historically practiced.
‘A failure to treat an employee less favourably than they might have been treated does not in itself constitute unfavourable treatment.
‘Second, and critically, I have found that the practice had been, or was at least intended to have been, ended for all employees before Ms Nunn’s work anniversary came round (with a few limited exceptions for, for example, exceptional long service).
‘Ms Nunn was not therefore treated unfavourably because the practice was ended.’
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