Payout for man of 50 who ‘would not fit in’ with women millennials
A MIDDLE-AGED man rejected from a job because he wouldn’t fit in with ‘millennial’ women has been awarded £7,500 in compensation for age and sex discrimination.
Neil McClements was the highest ranked candidate for a role at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in south London.
But he lost out after potential future colleagues, who supported ‘social justice’ causes, were consulted on his application.
An employment tribunal heard the predominantly female team, aged in their early 30s, observed that Mr McClements, a 50-yearold father of two, was ‘nothing like’ the young woman he would be replacing.
Instead the team hired a much younger, female candidate who had performed less well at interview. When Mr McClements heard he was not successful, he was told it was because his prospective manager felt she would be uncomfortable giving instruc
‘Will you be a Minion?’
tions to someone old enough to have an 11-year-old daughter.
The tribunal panel, headed by Judge Tony Hyams-Parish, ruled he was the victim of both age and sex discrimination.
Mr McClements, who attended business school at Cambridge University, was interviewed for the job as project manager at the NHS Trust in July 2018.
The role, paying around £40,000 a year, involved helping the health service adapt its technology more quickly.
The tribunal in Croydon, south London, heard Mr McClements, who was 47 at the time, used visual aids in a presentation, including a Minion backpack featuring characters from the Despicable Me film series. He explained the Minions were playful, servile animated characters.
The tribunal heard the interview panel ‘sought to establish [his] willingness to work for others that were younger than him and perform more menial tasks,’ and that he was then asked ‘will you be a Minion?’
Mr McClements, who has a background in technology, claimed he was being asked if he would ‘do mundane tasks’ or be ‘a servile follower or subordinate of a person in power’.
The interview panel, which included Dr Charlotte Lee – who he would report to – and proTribunal: Neil McClements gramme director Jenny Thomas, scored him highest of all the applicants. After the interview, he and the other top ranked applicant – a woman in her 20s – were introduced to other members of the team, including a woman named Rose, the tribunal was told.
The team members were asked what they thought of him in an exercise to see who was the ‘best fit’. In evidence, the tribunal were shown posts from Rose’s Twitter account, where she described herself as a ‘feminist’ and said her interests included social justice and inequality. One retweet read: ‘ London is the most diverse city in the UK but women are still paid less than men and there are too few of them in leadership roles.’
Dr Lee described herself as a ‘ millennial’ on social media. Comments made by the team questioned whether Mr McClements was too experienced and how he was ‘ very different’ to the woman he was replacing.
The following day, after hiring the other candidate, Dr Lee rang Mr McClements, from Spalding, Lincolnshire, to tell him his application had not been successful. She said a ‘main factor’ was that she felt uncomfortable asking him to do things given he had an 11-year-old.
The tribunal concluded Dr Lee meant it would be hard to manage someone older than her, and that ‘both conscious and unconscious bias’ in finding someone of the ‘best fit’ led the interviewers ‘to take into account factors which were discriminatory’.
Judge Hyams-Paris ordered the Trust to pay Mr McClements – who is now the chief executive of charity Haemochromatosis UK – £7,580.14 in compensation.
A claim of failing to make a reasonable adjustment due to a disability was dismissed.