A sight-impaired worker on probation who was not given enough time to familiarise himself with processes and his work environment before being dismissed by a bakery in North Wales was treated unfavourably.
An employment tribunal found that The Village Bakery in Wrexham, which produces baked goods for major UK retailers, failed to make reasonable adjustments for claimant Mr Stanley, who is seeking more than £112,000 in compensation.
Stanley is registered blind, having been diagnosed with Bardet Biedl syndrome in 2010. He does have some vision, but it is severely limited.
He began working as a night shift production operative at the bakery in July 2023, having recently left a job in a similar environment at another food manufacturer, where he had worked for around 18 years. However, this new facility was busier than he was used to, with lots of people working at pace alongside machinery.
Reasonable adjustments
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He initially worked with a ‘buddy’ in the dispatch area and no issues about his performance were raised. However, night shift manager Kevin Jones told the tribunal that he was informed about the claimant crashing racks of bread into machinery and almost hitting staff with trolleys. These concerns were not passed on to Stanley.
When his buddy went on annual leave, the claimant was left alone for long periods. He struggled to read the thermometer used to gauge the temperature of the bread and found it difficult to move racks around the factory.
He struggled to keep up with production during this time and bread racks began accumulating in the dispatch area. A supervisor came to assist him in clearing the backlog, but at no point did anyone raise issues regarding the speed or quality of his work.
Moved to different department
Stanley was moved to the slicing department on 13 August 2023. He was only shown once how to do the role and claimed that he could not see how colleagues were doing it in order to copy their behaviour. He was not able to keep up with production.
Later that day he was moved to another area and tasked with checking whether the seal at the top of the bagged bread was correctly closed and there were no rips in the bag. He was again shown what to do once and was left on his own, and claimed no one asked whether he needed any assistance. He struggled to perform this task as he had to refocus his vision every time he moved a bag.
Following a period of annual leave, he returned to the dispatch area. No issues were brought to his attention apart from a manager informing him that bread was falling off the end of a trolley he was moving.
He was also asked to clean baking trays. After being told he was leaving debris on the tray, he took longer to ensure they were clean. No one informed him that he was taking too long to clean the trays.
Stanley also struggled to clock in and out, as it required punching a number into a keypad that he found difficult to see.
Dismissed at probationary meeting
His employment was terminated at a probationary review meeting on 21 August 2023. He was told that while he had scored ‘fair’ in attitude and commitment, cleaning tasks had been unsatisfactory and there had been several ‘near miss’ incidents.
His sight impairment was not discussed during the meeting and he was not given any accessible documentation beforehand.
The tribunal found that the organisation was aware of Stanley’s disability and ought to have known that it would take him longer to achieve the same standard of work as other employees.
The company told the employment tribunal that Stanley’s dismissal had arisen because of concerns about health and safety and product wastage, and that it would not have been cost-effective for it to employ a buddy to support the claimant. However, it accepted that there had been no accidents.
Although he had not raised the prospect of reasonable adjustments with the organisation, Stanley suggested he would have been able to work effectively had he been given more time to familiarise himself with processes and the layout of the factory and develop strategies for completing his tasks. He said he had worked in a factory environment with minimal adjustments for many years.
It was also suggested that telling other colleagues about his disability and providing him with hi-vis clothing would have acted as a reminder that he could need assistance.
Reasonable adjustments
The employment tribunal found that the claimant was not obliged to raise the prospect of reasonable adjustments, and that the employer should have been aware that it had a duty to do so.
Employment Judge Brace’s decision says: “The claimant had worked for over 18 years in a factory environment living and managing his sight impairment within a factory setting for most if not all of that time. Whilst we acknowledged that this was a different working environment, we did not consider it unreasonable, particularly taking into account the standard probation period was three months, to have given the claimant at least that time if not longer to adjust to the unfamiliar role, work and environment to reach the same standard required of other employees on probation.
We did not consider it unreasonable, particularly taking into account the standard probation period was three months, to have given the claimant at least that time if not longer to adjust to the unfamiliar role, work and environment” – Employment Judge Brace
“This would have provided the claimant with the chance to improve once he had become more familiar with the process and environment.”
The tribunal believed that, had he been given additional time for familiarisation and training, Stanley’s performance would have improved to the expected level.
It also said he should have been given a designated support worker, and disagreed that this would have been too costly for the firm.
“Further, if enquiries were made of Access to Work or [the Royal National Institute of Blind People], there may be funding for such a post and make it reasonable for an employer to take certain steps which would otherwise be unreasonably expensive,” the judgment adds.
“We were also not persuaded that giving the claimant more time would have increased the risk to health and safety of the claimant or indeed any other member of staff working at the bakery. Suitable and sufficient risk assessments should have been used to help determine whether such risk is likely to arise and we had found that there had been none.”
The tribunal agreed that Stanley’s dismissal amounted to disability discrimination.
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A further hearing will take place to decide whether compensation is owed to Stanley.
