Young accountant wins payout over insurance chief’s ‘demanding’ millennial comments
A trainee accountant has won a case against employer, after his boss said she had made “the wrong decision in giving a dyslexic person the job” whilst firing him from his job at the Lloyd’s insurance broker.
26-year-old accountant Jay Patel is set to receive compensation for unfair dismissal, after an employment tribunal heard his 69-year-old boss at London insurance firm Lucy A Raymond & Sons said he was “too demanding – like his generation of millennials.”
Insurance firm founder Lucy Raymond-Williams fired Patel just a month after first taking him on as a trainee accountant in 2020 – after he was forced to work from home just two days into first starting his job due to the UK’s national lockdown policy.
Patel later sued his former employee for unfair dismissal, over claims he had faced discrimination for both his age and disability.
The employment tribunal said the young accountant – who graduated with a first-class degree in accounting and management – had not faced discrimination due to his age but said he had faced discrimination because of his dyslexia.
In explaining her decision, the company boss told the tribunal Patel had “expected things to be handed to him on a plate,” as she claimed she had initially hired the young accountant “to show what people with dyslexia can achieve.”
The tribunal heard Patel had struggled with his work and taken longer than expected to complete his tasks, as it was told that other colleagues had raised concerns about his abilities and lack of progress.
Although the firm had initially hoped to hire a fully qualified accountant, Patel was hired on the promise that his new company would fund his accountancy training.
The tribunal said “exaggerated” claims Patel had been “demanding” and “discourteous” are probably related to his requests for the firm to sign off on his professional objectives and fund his accountancy qualifications.
Patel is set to be awarded compensation at a later date.