WRC - Salesforce ordered to pay €1,000 over delay in response to 550km office commute
A recruiter at Salesforce who moved to the west of Ireland with his family under a remote work arrangement - only to be ordered back to an office 275km away after less than a year - is the first person to win compensation for a breach of legislation which came into force last year.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) made the award solely for the business software company's failure to respond in time to a formal request for a remote work arrangement by the worker, Thomas Farrell, after he was told last year that he was required back in the office three to four times a week.
Salesforce, which has its European headquarters in Dublin, was found in breach of the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023 for missing a four-week deadline for a response.
Mr Farrell told the WRC at a hearing in February that his bosses approved an arrangement in June 2023 under which he would be allowed to relocate to the west of Ireland and "continue working remotely, attending the office as needed".
The tribunal heard there were personal circumstances for the move and that it was required for his partner's employment.
Around 11 months later, in May 2024, Mr Farrell's line manager told her team they would have to attend the office three to four times a week, the complainant said.
In a formal request under the legislation, Mr Farrell told his employer he needed to work remotely because of "the unsustainability of a 550km daily round-trip commute".
He also pointed to "proven performance in a remote capacity" and "inconsistencies" in Salesforce's return-to-office policy which he stated "allowed other employees in similar roles to work remotely".
His request was filed on 10 June 2024, but the company failed to reply within the four-week deadline specified in the legislation, the WRC noted.
Salesforce then wrote to Mr Farrell on 11 July 2024, after the expiry of the deadline, looking for more time. It rejected his request on 26 July 2024, nine days after he filed a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission.
The reasons given for requiring Mr Farrell in the office were "the promotion of collaboration", a need for "in-person meetings with hiring managers" and "alignment with [Salesforce's] global hybrid working strategy", the tribunal was told.
Mr Farrell said these reasons were at odds with "prior agreements and internal communications" which he said had "explicitly removed" in-person meetings from his duties.
Zelda Cunningham, internal counsel for Salesforce, said the failure to respond to Mr Farrell's request in time was "attributable to human error". She argued that the company had complied with the legislation by responding to the request.
Adjudication officer Breiffni O'Neill accepted Salesforce's position that he could not consider any aspect of the complaint except for its failure to respond to Mr Farrell's request within the four weeks required by the legislation.
That ruled out any consideration of the substantive reasons for denying the request, he wrote.
Mr O'Neill found Salesforce gave "no compelling reasons" for failing to meet the deadline, but that he considered the delay "minor".
He directed the company to pay Mr Farrell €1,000 for the breach.
Mr Farrell's case is the ninth complaint decided by the WRC under the Work life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023, which came into force last year, and marks the first-ever award of compensation under the legislation.
In one case last year, the WRC concluded that staffing agency Cognizant Technology Solutions Ireland Limited had contravened the Act by missing the deadline for response to such a request by a worker.
However, the adjudicator in that case awarded no compensation because she considered that the volume of requests by staff at the firm made the delay "inevitable".
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