Statement on the 2017 dismissal of Aimee Sanderson

This page is about the dismissal of Aimee Sanderson who worked for Bespoke for a short time in 2017, and the subsequent tribunal decision in her favour.

We’ll always be staggered by the tribunal’s decision. We were deeply upset by it as we felt we’d been very kind and supportive to Aimee.

However having accepted the decision we sought to draw positives for the future and used the outcome as motivation to support teammates even more than before.

Bespoke has since become one of the few digital agencies in the north-west to be awarded Investors in People status.

We’re proud of how our team and managers responded to the tribunal decision and are providing this page for anybody interested in the details around the 2017 dismissal.

Aimee's employment

Aimee joined us in January 2017 and became pregnant in July 2017.

The tribunal panel recognised that Aimee’s managers had genuine concerns about her performance throughout her employment.

Following a complaint from a client in October 2017 we had to run the disciplinary process and Aimee was dismissed.

We hired an HR company to oversee the process and the tribunal saw our email to them saying we wanted a fair outcome.

We sought to support Aimee during the process but prior to her hearing she had already engaged a solicitor and was preparing a tribunal claim.

We committed to paying Aimee’s full maternity pay regardless of her dismissal and the tribunal saw that she received her 9-months pay as normal after she left us.

The tribunal found we’d sought no financial benefit by dismissing Aimee.

The hearing

The legal advice we received prior to the hearing was that the case had little chance of success.

It was based around descriptions of events which none of our team recognised as having happened. There was no direct evidence of them having occurred and no witnesses.

In the absence of direct evidence to support Aimee’s claims the tribunal would simply have to decide whose account they felt was credible.

Aimee suggested a settlement payment should be made but our team wanted to go ahead with the hearing and have the claims put to bed.

From our perspective the hearing was a car crash.

Unexpectedly we had to change barrister part way through the process.

We also ran out of time to question Aimee on the meeting that led to her dismissal.

8 people provided statements to say we treated Aimee very kindly and fairly, but as we’d been advised the claim was unlikely to be successful we only had 4 attend the hearing.

But even despite the issues on the day we still felt the panel had seen enough to find in our favour so we were astonished when the verdict later arrived.

We were deeply, deeply upset and with hindsight should have submitted an appeal, but it had been a draining experience and we just wanted to move on and focus our team and clients.

The financial award

Aimee asked the tribunal for around £45k but was eventually awarded £23k.

The panel has to award within certain guidelines and on each point went towards the lower end of the guidelines. The award was close to the lowest that they could make.

Aimee was disappointed with the amount and wrote to the tribunal asking for us to pay an extra £21k to cover her costs but her request was unsuccessful.

At the award hearing we accepted the outcome, apologised to all involved and we paid the money to Aimee on the first day we were able to.

Investors in people

Bespoke has always sought to support its team especially where there are opportunities to go above and beyond, for example around family or personal matters.

A quirk of the tribunal hearing was that one of Aimee’s complaints was about her manager, who herself had recently been promoted whilst on maternity leave.

We offer flexible start and finish times and part time hours so mums and dads can fit their work around family commitments, so we couldn’t understand how the panel could find as they did.

After the verdict we decided to be proactive and seek to make improvements if we could and as part of this we hired Investors in People to audit and advise us.

As part of the process all of our staff were anonymously interviewed about working conditions, their personal development opportunities and the way in which they are supported.

As it happened we achieved the Investors in People award at the first time of asking, and we have gone on to make further improvements for our team beyond the IIP standard.

We’re grateful to our team for such a positive response to what was a truly awful experience, and we’re pleased to see their efforts and actions recognised with the award.

Steve Brennan, Co-founder & CEO