Hotel worker wins $15k due to vague contract

A hotel worker has won a $17,000 payout after his former employer failed to create clear guidelines for his bonus. The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) in Auckland ordered hotel management company VR Group to pay Girish Shetty $15,000 in compensation and a $2000 fine for failing to act in good faith. Shetty worked for VR Group from June 2018 until July 2019. His employment agreement included a salary of $90,000 plus $30,000 gross on achieving targets set by management. The contract did not go into detail of what those targets were. Shetty told the ERA he understood he would receive his bonus for projects outside the duties set out in the job description. He said there had been no discussion or agreement about the targets either verbally or in his employment agreement. However, J R Chaturvedi, VR Group’s director of group operations and sales, marketing and revenue, told the authority the bonus was dependent solely on financial targets. Shetty said while he had received budgets during his tenure, he had not been told they were the basis for his bonus targets. In January 2019, VR Group called Shetty into a performance appraisal meeting. The two sides disagreed over the reason for the meeting. Shetty claimed the meeting related to a request for a raise, while VR Group representatives said the meeting was to discuss concerns over financial targets not being met. A meeting document provided to the authority recorded Shetty’s performance ratings as predominantly ‘exceptional’ or ‘above expectations’. Another document had various notations including the words ‘budget’ and ‘actual’, and the word ‘bonus’ with the number 100 below it. Chaturvedi said this confirmed Shetty knew he had to achieve 100% of the budget to be paid a bonus. However, the company failed to provide any evidence confirming what exactly had been discussed at the meeting, or proof that the two parties had reached an agreement over how the target would be measured. After leaving VR Group, Shetty repeatedly attempted to gain clarity over his bonus payment.