Work from home is allowed to supervise your gardener, tribunal rules as company director wins £30,000 payout

Daily Mail​

28-05-2025

Employees who ask to work from home because they are having work done on their garden should not be disciplined, a tribunal has ruled.
IT director Ben Wicken had been scheduled to meet company founder Christophe Boudet in person to try to resolve a work disagreement, the employment tribunal heard.
But the pair fell out when he asked to hold it instead via Teams - as his gardeners were due to come over and he needed to work from home for the rest of the week as a result.
Mr Boudet told the tribunal he was 'very disappointed' by this as it made it seem as if Mr Wicken was not taking the process seriously.
Shortly afterwards, his co-directors announced that they had 'lost trust and confidence' in the technical director, leading to his eventual resignation.
Mr Wicken has won a £30,692 payout after winning his constructive dismissal case against IT services company Akita Systems.
It is the latest in a series of bizarre office behaviours to be deemed lawful or unlawful by employment judges. Calling a man bald or sending an unwanted birthday card are among those that have been deemed unlawful but air kissing a colleague was allowed.
The tribunal, held in Croydon, south London, heard that Mr Wicken began working at the company in March 2014 as a junior network manager and later became the technical director.
In March 2022 he got into an argument with Mr Boudet about holiday cover.
An external HR specialist, Maria Cruse, who witnessed the argument, offered to carry out mediation between the two directors to help them improve their communication.
The tribunal heard their first mediation meeting went well and they continued to meet regularly.
'The next mediation meeting was due to take place on 3 May 2022,' the hearing was told, 'but [Mr Wicken] called Mr Boudet and asked if they could move the meeting to a Teams meeting and change the time to 11am as he needed to work from home for the rest of the week because he had work being done in the garden and so he would need to be there.
'The Tribunal accepts the evidence of Mr Boudet that he was very disappointed about this and told [Mr Wicken] that it appeared he was not taking the process seriously. [He] did then attend the office.'
The tribunal heard that Mr Wicken felt 'attacked' during the meeting and broke down in tears following an 'off the record' discussion with his boss afterwards.
He was asked to draft an 'improvement plan' for his relationship with the founder, which he described as a 'sham', before submitting a grievance which was later closed amid a row that the external HR consultant asked to investigate was a long-standing friend of Mr Boudet.
This was the 'last straw' for Mr Wicken, who had been off sick for two months, and he chose to resign on 28 June instead of returning to Akita Systems.
He listed the reasons for his resignation as conduct towards him since February, a 'sham' performance improvement plan, and the appointment of the consultant to investigate his grievance.
The tribunal found Mr Wicken's treatment did lead to his constructive unfair dismissal, in particular comments made by Ms Cruse about his co-directors losing trust in him, the instructing of HR consultant, and the decision to close his grievance.
Employment Judge Lisa Burge said that although Mr Wicken acknowledged that prioritising his gardener over the one-to-one meeting was a 'mistake' it wasn't 'blameworthy' on his part.
She said: 'The tribunal concludes that [Mr Wick] did not contribute to his dismissal...
'[Akita] submits that [Mr Wick] admitted that his decision to prioritise arrangements with his gardener over attendance at a one-to-one mediation follow-up meeting was a mistake and that he refused to cooperate with the grievance investigation.
'However, these actions, in the context of the facts found and detailed above, do not constitute 'culpable or blameworthy' conduct.'