WFH finance worker sues company after she was sacked for moving to France

One of the few good things to come from the Coronavirus pandemic was the introduction of working from home, with more and more companies adopting it as a long-term approach.

This became a more permanent option for some workers who wanted to be remote, which helped them care for children or dogs and get the odd household chore done while putting yourself in a Teams meeting or keeping yourself 'active'.

However, it seems as if some are taking advantage of the system and ruining it for everyone else, such as a police officer who was found to have used a popular hack instead of actually doing any work and later fired.

And since the definition of home can also be blurred somewhat, we have instances of people taking their laptops abroad on holiday to get some work done at the beach.

For Iryna Malyk, it was more of a permanent re-location that led to issues at her work, as she wanted to follow her husband to France while continuing to work for Teleperformance, a UK-based digital business service.

She had been told by the company that this was not possible, but decided to do it anyway, and was still shocked when she was fired, to the extent where she's attempted to sue her old company in an employment tribunal.

The tribunal was told: "In a follow-up call on June 26, Mr Aouate told [Ms Malyk] that she could not work on UK projects in France on a permanent basis because the laws are different and this would cause legal and tax issues.

"He did not provide specific detail about the laws he was referring to.

She had been hoping to relocate to France with her husband (Getty Stock)

"Later on June 26, [Ms Malyk] emailed [Drussila Solomon, head of HR in the UK] saying that due to personal circumstances she was moving to France in July, and was planning to continue to work from home from there.

"She said Mr Aouate had told her she wouldn't be able to perform her duties from France as it would mean breach of certain law."

A letter addressed to the claimant said: “I understand that you are in a difficult position, but for the reasons stated above, I am afraid it is simply not feasible for you to work for Teleperformance Contact Limited (UK) from France”.

It goes on to say: “I must therefore confirm that it is a reasonable management instruction to require you to attend work in the UK. Failure to attend work in the UK will be treated as pre-meditated unauthorised absence and a failure to follow a reasonable management instruction. One potential sanction for failure to follow a reasonable management instruction, following an appropriate disciplinary procedure, is dismissal from the Company without notice or notice pay."

Sadly working from anywhere and working from home aren't considered to be the same thing (Getty Stock)

While Ms Malyk reckoned she might be Adieu some compensation after she was fired, it seems as if the judge doesn't really think she has a leg to stand on given what was laid out to her by the company before she headed across the channel.

The judge said her contract 'expressly states that [Ms Malyk] will work from her home in the UK' and she 'was insisting on working from France'.

She continued: "[Ms Malyk] argues that she had acted openly and did not believe there was gross misconduct, and says [Teleperformance Contact's] actions were disproportionate.

"I do not agree. The instruction was reasonable in the circumstances, and the disciplinary action was pursued because [Ms Malyk] was continuing to refuse to comply despite having been warned about the consequences."

Her claim for unfair dismissal was described as 'not well founded' and it was later 'dismissed'.