A sales executive at a human resources firm who claimed her male colleagues were being given more and better leads on new business has lost her gender discrimination case.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has rejected a series of complaints by Amanda Ball, a Dublin-based sales executive, in a set of decisions published today.
Legal filings on behalf of Ms Ball in 2023 stated that her annual earnings were “drastically reduced” when the company brought in a new system for assigning sales leads in 2020.
Ms Ball’s annual earnings averaged €145,300 from 2015 to 2020, but dropped from €128,500 in 2020 to €59,000 in 2021, it was alleged.
She blamed this on the firm giving “preferential treatment” to men under a new system for assigning sales leads.
However, the company said the assignment of sales leads was tied not to the gender, but to the rate at which members of the sales team were converting them to new business.
Giving evidence, Raj Singh, the chief executive of Peninsula’s Irish arm, told the WRC that the cost to the firm of generating sales leads was “substantial” – referring in particular to its online advertising.
“Leads must therefore be directed to those most likely to convert them,” he said.
Records from Peninsula’s lead allocation system were produced to adjudication officer Brian Dalton.
He noted that there had been a reduction in the number of “office-generated” sales leads assigned to Ms Ball, giving rise to an inference of discrimination which fell to the employer to rebut.
“The records show that the complainant’s conversion rate was below the team average in most months of 2022, and below that of the male comparator she identified in every month recorded,” Mr Dalton wrote.
Mr Dalton noted further that a female comparator earned “substantially more” in 2022 than Ms Ball, while some male comparators “earned substantially less”.
“The variation in earnings between individuals of the same sex was considerably greater than any variation between the sexes,” he added.
“I am satisfied that the difference in the allocation of leads and appointments and the consequent difference in earnings was determined by conversion performance, and not by sex,” Mr Dalton wrote.
“The same system applied to male and female business development managers alike, and its operation produced no pattern along gender lines,” he wrote.
He concluded Ms Ball was not “treated less favourably because she is a woman” in relation to the pay matter.
In a further complaint, Ms Ball alleged that she suffered less favourable treatment, either for making a discrimination claim or making a bullying complaint, or both.
On 14 October 2022, Peninsula held what its legal team said was a “major conference” in Ireland which was mandatory for all sales staff.
Ms Ball and a male colleague declined to attend the full event, and both were later subject to disciplinary hearings in relation to the matter, it was submitted. No sanction arose from the disciplinary process, Peninsula’s lawyers said.
Ms Ball wrote in a complaint to the WRC that Mr Singh called her “disrespectful and selfish” for indicating that she would not stay for dinner and drinks after the conference.
She described being approached by Mr Singh in front of other colleagues at the event and told she was to “rethink her decision” not to stay.
Ms Ball said this caused her “distress and humiliation”.
Mr Singh denied calling Ms Ball “disrespectful and selfish”. He said his remark was that “deliberately not recognising the efforts and achievements of colleagues would be selfish and disrespectful to those colleagues”.
It was the firm’s position that both staff were treated “in the same way” and that what happened in relation to the conference had “nothing to do with any complaint she had made, or any threat of legal proceedings”.
Barrister Rosemary Mallon represented Peninsula in the case, instructed by Peter Murphy of McInnes Dunne Murphy, while Ms Ball presented her own case.
