The Warehouse Group ordered to pay former Noel Leeming employee more than $30,000

A disgruntled former Noel Leeming employee has been awarded more than $30,000 in an Employment Relations Authority decision after he argued he suffered burnout.

Stephen Perry was hired as a salesman in 2019. He said several issues arising throughout his employment left him exhausted, struggling, suffering headaches, and so unwell he couldn’t work and needed to claim a benefit.

When he was first employed his contract stipulated incentive payments for meeting sales targets. However, his budgets were incorrect, losing him commissions he would have been entitled to receive.

The following year, he raised concerns his targets had been set too high and gave evidence to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) it had been impacting his mental health.

Perry’s targets were then amended. But Perry was still stressed by the short notice his monthly targets were set.

Another concern arose when the company restructured its employment. Perry argued he lost support available to staff and had to do more administrative tasks, which he said wasted salespeople’s potential and affected his work-life balance.

Perry also complained about administrative changes where Noel Leeming staff’s email accounts were changed from Gmail to Microsoft Outlook when the Noel Leeming Group and The Warehouse Group merged.

He said his business card and uniform were changed and his role was listed as “Education Specialist”, which Perry said he did not consent to and all happened without consultation.

Perry said he then began experiencing severe stress-related medical symptoms. It came after he said he was pressured to start selling products from other Warehouse Group products like Warehouse Stationery.

Perry said he had lost colleagues he needed to help him reach his sales targets since the restructure, he still wasn’t receiving support, and this exacerbated his health issues.

However, a development manager for The Warehouse Group, Benjamin Halling, gave evidence to the ERA that administrative tasks Perry complained about were part of his role and support was staff support was available.

Halling also said Perry was “unreasonably upset” about the changes to his email account, business card and uniform. Halling said Perry told him he didn’t want to be associated with The Warehouse Group.

Regarding any pressure to sell Warehouse Stationery products, Halling said staff were “given the option” to sell their products and he strongly disagreed with Perry’s suggestion pressure had been applied to him.

In July 2021 Perry requested a meeting with Halling where he said he was suffering from burnout. He had since taken sick leave for burnout. He raised that he had been “broken by the workload”.

Halling recalled the meeting to the ERA, saying Perry was crying and banged his fists on the table. Halling, however, said Perry did not specify what exactly had been stressing him.

Halling told the ERA Perry’s workload was no more than any other employee’s and said Perry created situations where he would get behind on his work.

But the ERA ultimately decided a fair and reasonable employer would have taken “more formal and proactive steps to understand Mr Perry’s mental health situation at the time” and it was reasonably foreseeable he would resign due to his claimed injuries.

ERA member Sarah Blick accepted Perry’s personal grievance for constructive dismissal and awarded him $25,000 as compensation, $7,136.80 for lost earnings and five days of lifestyle leave.