The potential cost of people management gaffes on BBC3’s The Call Centre

Many Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk) HR services clients may have watched with interest, the fly-on-the-wall BBC3 television show The Call Centre. The programme certainly intrigued experts in employment law, given the woeful and potentially financially costly management skills on show from the maverick boss Nev Wiltshire.

Nev did not impress many providers of HR training with his various errors committed managing up to 700 employees as they made cold calls. Nev’s call centre even hit the news while the show was on air, with £225,000 in fines being imposed on two of its major clients for privacy rule breaches.

Examples of Nev’s antics throughout the series included, in episode one, trying to assist unlucky-in-love administrator Kayleigh Davies by parading her around the workplace in search of possible suitors, in addition to arranging a speed dating session for her.

One might expect that such behaviour could be subject to claims for direct sex discrimination and harassment ‘because of’ sex. However, this particular type of claim by Kayleigh could only succeed if she could show that a male colleague would not be treated in the same way by Nev. Sure enough, he did also parade telemarketer George Vorkas around the office to seek a date for him.

Such equally poor treatment of both sexes could possibly provide Nev with some defence, although Nev later warned off a potential suitor for Kayleigh, not doing the same when George was also matched during the speed date. Therefore, Kayleigh may have had a potentially valid claim for sex discrimination through which she could have been in receipt of compensation relating to any financial loss and injury to feelings.

Also of interest was an incident where one-time telesales worker turned tea lady, Hayley Pearce was tasked by Nev with literally organising a ‘piss up’ in a brewery, after her failure to organise another event. As humorous as it initially sounds, Nev’s knowledge of Hayley’s Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder could land him with a claim for disability discrimination which could have attracted similarly constructed compensation to Kayleigh’s.

Nor did Nev make a good account of himself in another incident of interest to those conducting disciplinary investigations, in episode three, in which he completely failed to follow a disciplinary procedure in his response to several unauthorised absences by leading salesman Matthew “Chicken Head” Thomas. This could have given rise to a constructive dismissal claim which, if successful, would have resulted in compensation for loss of earnings compounded by an uplift of up to 25% for failing to follow the relevant ACAS Code of Practice.

All in all, such mistakes by Nev in the programme alone could have ended up costing him and/or his business tens of thousands of pounds. It is a cautionary lesson to employers of the value of approaching a company like Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk) for more informed employment law advice.

Editor’s Note: Employee Management Ltd (http://www.employeemanagement.co.uk) are represented by the search engine advertising and digital marketing specialists Jumping Spider Media. Email: info@jumpingspidermedia.co.uk or call: +44 (0)20 3070 1959 / +34 952 783 637.