Receptionist dismissed after manager said she was not ‘dark enough’ to be offended by racist comments

This article was first published by Freddie Clemo on the People Management website in December 2024: Hotel receptionist constructively dismissed after manager said she was not ‘dark enough’ to be offended by racist comments, tribunal finds (peoplemanagement.co.uk)

A hotel receptionist was harassed and constructively dismissed after enduring racist remarks and being told by management she was not “dark enough” to be offended, a tribunal has found. 

The employment tribunal in Bury St Edmunds determined that Georgia Sylvester, who is of mixed heritage, suffered harassment, discrimination and constructive dismissal.

Sylvester reported experiencing what she described as "institutional racism” at the hotel, with the tribunal finding that numerous staff members made racist comments. Managers reportedly brushed these off as either “just a joke” or a “generational thing”.

The tribunal found the internal investigation conducted by the hotel to be a “sham” and “wholly inadequate”.

They found that the use of the N-word by a colleague clearly “violated the claimant’s dignity” and “created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating and an offensive environment for her”. 

Background 

Sylvester was employed as a reception supervisor at the Harper Hotel in Langham, Norfolk from 14 June 2021 until her resignation on 24 April 2023. 

At the time, Sylvester was a single parent managing anxiety and depression, which required medical care. 

Of mixed heritage, Sylvester’s mother is white English and her father is Black Caribbean. 

In November 2021, Jordan, the bar manager at the time, said to Sylvester that he wanted “every fucking foreigner out of the country”. 

Sylvester said she immediately confronted him, explaining her family was of foreign origin and asked him to refrain from making such comments in her presence.

She said Jordan later referred to a Polish colleague as a “foreigner”. When wedding and event coordinator Yasmeen Salahudeen Hashim-Caldwell challenged Jordan, he replied: “Watch me, I’ll call them whatever the fuck I want.” 

Both Sylvester and Hashim-Caldwell were concerned about the comments and complained about Jordan to senior managers. 

Sylvester complained to assistant manager Caroline Wilson who said “that’s not good is it?”, and said she would speak to Jules Keirle, the general manager. When no action was taken, Sylvester approached Amy Willmott, the operations manager. Willmott informed Sylvester that Jordan had been spoken to but dismissed the situation as a “he said, she said” matter. 

Willmott also told Sylvester she was “not dark enough to be offended” by Jordan’s comments. 

Hashim-Caldwell stated that Jordan left the company of his own accord, without facing any formal disciplinary action.

On 5 June 2022, Keirle gave a verbal warning for misconduct to John Holmes, a duty manager, for shouting and swearing at Sylvester and Katherine, another receptionist. 

He was angry that they were talking to Willmott in the staff area, and said “you are taking the piss, you need to be in there working”. 

Katherine was on her break while both Sylvester and Willmott had finished their shifts 45 minutes before the incident. 

Holmes apologised to both Katherine and Sylvester and said he was “embarrassed and ashamed”, and had been “exasperated and angry” but recognised that the comment was offensive. 

Reception manager Polly Mills left later that month, and Sylvester assumed many of her responsibilities. However, she was not promoted into the role, as Keirle claimed the position was not necessary.

The tribunal heard evidence that Sylvester worked additional hours and took on additional reception manager responsibilities, and she began to consider whether it was her mixed race heritage that was stopping her from being promoted. She did not raise it as an issue at the time, saying it was “not an easy thing to raise”. 

After Sylvester went on sick leave in March 2023, the hotel reinstated Mills as reception manager. 

Hashim-Caldwell, who had recently been promoted from restaurant manager to wedding and event coordinator, was of Arab descent. She said her skin colour had been “of no relevance and had not affected my career or growth within the business”. 

Sylvester said she received positive feedback about her performance from colleagues and Keirle.

Wilson said Sylvester did “a good job” but she did not think she was suitable for a promotion as she was not “mature” enough for the role and took a lot of time off sick. 

However, Hashim-Caldwell said she felt Sylvester should have been promoted to reception manager, and would have been promoted if she worked elsewhere. 

Matt Woodburn, maintenance manager, stated that Sylvester was better at her role than Mills, but said Mills represented a “personal preference” as to what the managers thought the company “wanted to present”. He would not outright say they wanted a white manager, but a more “demure” person. 

Dan Herbert, head chef, reiterated the view that Sylvester was passed over for a promotion as she was more capable in his eyes than Mills, who was "severely lacking” in work ethic. The tribunal took into account that Herbert is Sylvester’s partner and the father of her child. 

Sam Cutmore-Scott, managing director, said Sylvester was “unstable and needed constant emotional support”, had “complicated” romantic entanglements with team members and her childcare impacted her ability to do the job. He also said her mental health made her “difficult to rely on”, that she was “erratic and unpredictable” and that he believed she was suffering from a “paranoid delusion disorder”. 

In July 2022, Sylvester reported an incident involving guests taking drugs. During the discussion, Holmes allegedly made a racist remark towards Sylvester, accusing her of taking drugs as “all you Blacks are” drug users.

Sylvester brought this to the attention of Wilson, who dismissed it as a generational issue, excusing Holmes’s behaviour.

Holmes denied the allegations, stating Sylvester’s skin tone was no different from his own following a holiday in Tenerife. He admitted that he would say inappropriate things at work for a laugh.

A short time after he was warned in June, he referred to guests as “the Blacks”, and when challenged said: “I don’t bloody know what they are meant to be called nowadays.” 

Sylvester spoke to Wilson about the comments made by Holmes, and she replied: “Oh well, that would have been a joke, it’s John’s sense of humour. It’s his generation. That man doesn’t have a bad bone in his body.”

She said Sylvester must have had a “very sheltered life”, suggesting that she needed to put up with the treatment. 

Separately, in an exchange about a room being over capacity, Holmes said “well that’s just a n***** in a woodpile, isn’t it”, using the phrase to describe a “hidden problem about to come out”. 

Sylvester felt he was specifically directing offence towards her, stating that “no one in their right mind would use that one word against the only Black person in the building”. 

She tried to speak to senior staff members as she felt “extremely overwhelmed and anxious” and eventually had a panic attack and left. 

Keirle said he would investigate the issues and provide Sylvester with an outcome. The outcome dated 4 April 2023 stated that Keirle could not find “sufficient grounds to substantiate her grievance” as Holmes denied the comments, there was no witness to the woodpile comment, and there were no historical claims of racism made against him. 

Sylvester was signed off from work as a result of stress on 5 April, the same day she filed her grievance appeal, claiming there was "institutionalised racism” at the establishment. 

She wrote in her appeal: “I ask you to put yourself in my position and think about how it could feel to be the only person in the company, affected [by] racial comments towards Black people, be made to feel like you’re creating an unnecessary fuss when you report it, to be treated in a very cold manner, have your complaint rejected and then be expected to return to work alongside someone who has such vile views against your race and makes comments that attack what makes you you, not to mention your family members.”

On 24 April, Sylvester resigned while waiting for the outcome of her grievance appeal, stating that it was because of the response to her grievance and past issues not being dealt with. She said she could not return as she feared it would “make her mental health decline further”. 

The “final straw” for Sylvester was Wilson informing staff in advance of the grievance appeal outcome that “there was nothing in the allegations” and that they were untrue. The tribunal found it did now have enough evidence that these comments had been made, however. 

On 2 May, Sylvester was informed that the grievance appeal, conducted by Peninsula Face2Face, upheld Keirle’s decisions, stating that there was no evidence to substantiate the woodpile comment. 

Panel’s judgment 

Employment judge Graham and the panel deemed the internal investigation “wholly inadequate”, noting that “there was a lack of any attempt at a proper investigation”, with Sylvester’s concerns merely dismissed as the comments had not been witnessed by anyone else.

“It appeared to the tribunal that the process adopted by Mr Keirle was a sham and that he had no intention of uncovering what had really happened,” the panel said. 

The tribunal was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Holmes made the “n***** in a woodpile comment” and knew it would be offensive as he was very aware of Sylvester’s race. 

The tribunal also found the appeal process to be “unfair”, as key evidence was ignored and the "respondents' explanations were accepted at face value to the detriment of the claimant”. While the process was found to be more “thorough” than the original investigation, it was still not a fair investigation, the tribunal ruled. 

It found the allegations made against Sylvester, claiming she was “unstable” and “erratic”, to be “extraordinarily hostile and based upon the most scant evidence”. 

The tribunal noted that the only occasions mentioned were when Sylvester was ill for two days after switching medication and once when she had to rearrange a shift because of a childcare issue. The tribunal found there to be “no truth whatsoever in the attacks on the claimant’s performance and character”. 

The panel found management’s explanation of why Sylvester was not promoted to be “implausible”, taking into account the “exaggerated and unreliable” statement regarding her performance, which they said amounted to an “attempt at character assassination”. 

The tribunal said the hotel’s diversity policies were poorly implemented and that, while they set out that senior staff would receive training on the policy, the tribunal found that no such training was provided for staff until after the outcome of Sylvester’s case against them. 

Experts’ comments

Mandy Armstrong, director in employment at Anderson Strathern, said the case showed that merely having a “well-drafted policy in place” or “saying that you have a zero-tolerance approach to harassment and discrimination” was not enough. 

“The organisation has to live by that value and senior management have to buy into it,” she explained. “Ensuring that appropriate staff training is in place, differentiated for those at different levels of management, who may have different roles in terms of investigating and determining complaints, is key and is an area where the employer in this case faced heavy criticism. 

“The judgment highlights the importance of not simply having policies to deal with harassment and discrimination in place, but ensuring that those policies are properly understood and implemented throughout the organisation.”

Ingrid McGhee, employment partner at Weightmans, and Cara Hope, trainee solicitor at Weightmans, said the case was a “stark reminder around promoting an inclusive culture” and revealed how "discriminatory remarks can invalidate individual experiences”. 

They urged employers to ensure all staff were properly equipped with equality and diversity training to help address unconscious bias. 

They said “robust” grievance procedures should be in place to ensure individuals were properly trained and equipped to deal with the grievances. 

“Where concerns are raised, employers should take adequate steps to ensure employees are listened to, allegations are investigated and appropriate steps are taken to address acts amounting to misconduct,” they added.