Catherine Ritchie, a 66-year-old hospital administrator, has recently made a claim against her employers in an employment tribunal. She claims that the unruly conduct of her boisterous millennial co-workers constitutes age discrimination. The case, decided in Watford, Hertfordshire, focused on if the commotion created by Ritchie’s coworkers affected her capacity to perform her job duties in a meaningful way. In the end, the tribunal had to find that misconduct by junior staff is not harassment on grounds of age.
It was quite an accomplishment for Ritchie to work for the electrical engineering company at the age of 66. As the oldest staff member in the office, the cacophony proved to be unbearable. Meetings were tough too, as Ritchie would get frustrated by the chit-chat and happy-hour attitudes of her younger coworkers. This was especially challenging when she needed to make phone calls. She had to yell just to be heard over the clattering environment. This led to her frequently suffering from a scratchy voice and severe migraines.
Despite her grievances, Ritchie was advised by a manager to focus on meeting her targets rather than being concerned about the noise around her. This answer did very little to soothe her grievances about the overwhelming culture of hostility in her workplace. She found the noise from all the loud talking and everyone being on their phones all the time from her younger coworkers distracting. All of this made it impossible for her to do her job well.
The tribunal accepted Ms Ritchie’s evidence about her passion for her role and her efforts to run a professional workplace. They decided that her desire for a less distracting work setting was a failure to adapt. On this issue too, they held that younger employees mingling and networking did not breach equality legislation in the workplace.
“The tribunal accepted that the claimant took her work seriously and wished to remain professional at all times, but they considered that her projection of this standard to all those with whom she worked was not reasonable and resulted in her having unreasonable feelings of indignation about their behaviour when she did not have justifiable reason to do so.” – Tribunal
The tribunal found that Ritchie’s belief that the noise constituted harassment was unreasonable. They concluded that it’s okay for younger staff to stand around talking and participating in things such as phone scrolling. This presumptuous behavior has become normalized in the workplace.
“The tribunal considered that the claimant’s perception of the noisy and disruptive behaviour as amounting to harassment was not reasonable.” – Tribunal