A field sales rep for PrePayPower, who said his bosses were “at best indifferent, and at worst hostile” when told them of escalating abuse from the public amid record energy price inflation, has failed in a claim for constructive dismissal.
The Workplace Relations Commission has rejected a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 by John O’Brien against Yuno Energy Ltd, trading as Pre-Pay Power.
Mr O’Brien, an experienced salesman, worked for the utility provider from May 2018 until his resignation in March 2023.
He alleged he was forced to quit in the wake of an “escalating series of incidents” which arose in late 2022 and early 2023 while he was making sales calls in north and west Dublin.
Giving evidence to a hearing in April this year, he said he encountered “very abusive and in some cases intoxicated” people in the field in Blanchardstown, Finglas and Coolock.
He said that on one occasion, he was forced to step in to “save a colleague from a physical assault”.
In another incident, a “scooter-driving teenager” in Neilstown had also tried to steal his tablet computer from him on another occasion, he said.
Mr O’Brien said he raised these issues with his managers in late 2022, but got “little or no satisfactory response”, saying that their reaction was “at best indifferent, and at worst hostile”.
He told the WRC that at a sales meeting in early December 2022, he and his colleagues were told they would be “let go” if they failed to increase their sales to two a day. He told the WRC he felt “completely stressed out” and was out sick until 3 January 2023.
At a meeting on his return to work, his two managers – identified only as Mr O’C and Mr W in the tribunal’s decision today — told him he “was on his own in the field” and directed him to “stop ringing” them and “annoying” them about “minor incidents”, he said.
On 27 January 2023, Mr O’Brien said he was attacked and bitten by an aggressive dog. He said Mr O’C undertook to investigate, but nothing came of that.
He told the WRC he ran out of patience after Mr W met a group of staff in the field, including Mr O’Brien on 3 March 2023 to deliver a replacement tablet computer, but became “verbally very abusive” towards the workers.
After considering the matter, he gave notice of resignation and declined to use the company grievance and bullying procedures when a representative of PrePayPower’s human resources department suggested he do so.
Mr O’Brien said he had “lost all faith in the company” by then and was “leaving for the sake of his mental health”.
He agreed under cross-examination that door-to-door sales of electricity and gas “in the middle of a period of record energy price increases… was always going to be difficult”.
The company’s representative, Mark Comerford of the Irish Business and Employers’ Confederation (IBEC), said there was “no denying” Mr O’Brien faced “unfortunate interactions” on the doors but that were all “handled properly” by the managers.
Door-to-door sales for electricity and gas supply sales “post the Ukrainian [war] price hikes was not easy”, but the management “supported, as best as possible, the field sales staff in a difficult environment”.
Mr Comerford submitted that Mr W “may have on occasion been somewhat abrupt, but not to such an extent as to justify a constructive dismissal”. He added that Mr O’Brien’s failure to use the internal grievance process “totally undermined” his case.
Mr O’C and a company HR officer gave evidence to the tribunal in the company’s defence of the claim, but Mr W was “no longer available”, the WRC noted.
Adjudicator Michael McEntee wrote in his decision that both parties recognised that pushing sales of pre-pay gas and electricity plans “against a background of record energy prices” was “not a job for the faint-hearted.
He wrote that it was “not helpful” that the firm’s sales reps were told at one stage they were “on their own” in the field and not to be “annoying” their bosses with calls.
He noted that Mr O’Brien was a “very experienced”, “mature” and “successful” salesman who was back in work “almost immediately” in another door-to-door sales job after quitting.
He considered the claimant “an unlikely candidate to go out on sick leave on ‘stress grounds’ unless it was a severe situation”.
Mr O’C’s evidence “reflected that of a sales manager under pressure to deliver”, Mr McEntee wrote, expressing his view that the manager was “likely to succumb to overly abrupt communication”.
“A very seasoned representative such as the complainant was going to react negatively. The wide age and experience difference did not help,” he wrote.
He concluded on the balance of probabilities that Mr O’Brien “was subjected to unreasonable managerial behaviour” – but found these were not so bad that they justified immediate resignation.
Mr McEntee upheld a second complaint by Mr O’Brien under the Terms of Employment (Information) Act 1994, noting that there was “considerable confusion in the legal basis of the employment contract between first recruitment and actual on-the-ground operations”.
He ordered PrePayPower to pay Mr O’Brien €1,000 for the breach.
