I examined 100 employment tribunal cases and here is what I found
First, people are petty...
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After a LinkedIn post about what I learned during a casual perusal of employment tribunal cases in the UK (because, yes, tribunal is public) garnered a lot of interest, I decided to do a more formal examination. I took the 100 most recent cases posted and coded them by the following parameters:
Gender
Win / Lose
Type
Overwhelmingly, people went to tribunal for two reasons: Gaslighting (I lumped unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal, breach of contract, discrimination, etc. into one category as complaints often included several of these reasons and, at the end of the day, they are all forms of gaslighting) and compensation. Compensation for these purposes isn’t about getting paid what one is worth, but was more likely withheld wages, unauthorized deductions, etc.
What does the data tell us?
Let’s start with the top line: What are your chances of winning? 45% of claims won in my sample, which is close to the publicly reported percentage of about half of all claims are won. Now, we have to caveat this with the fact many of the claims were struck out, baseless, people didn’t file in time, etc. These are not high quality cases losing. It’s that the masses that go to tribunal just…aren’t good cases. That was clear when I was reading the decisions.
Men were more likely than women to file claims, making up 58% of applicants, versus just 42% of women.
People largely went to tribunal for two reasons: Gaslighting, and compensation. Gaslighting comprised 67% of claims, versus just 33% for compensation. Gaslighting claims were largely more unsuccessful than compensation claims, with just 28% of claims being successful. I believe this is because many people with less than two years of service tried to claim unfair dismissal, and other cases failed because of gross misconduct on the employee's behalf or they simply didn't file claims in time — lots of case dismissals due to paperwork not being filed appropriately.
Compensation claims were easier to win, with 76% of cases being successful. What struck me about compensation claims were the small amounts people would go to court after. The amounts are petty in many cases (under £2,000). When people did lose, it was because they didn't follow through - not that they didn't have a case. Women were more likely than men to not follow through.
And were there other gender breakdowns of victory? 40% of women won their cases, versus 48% of men.
So, there you have it. I think it’s pretty balanced, on the whole.
What do you think? Are there other variables I should examine and do a part 2?