Workplace Relations Commission (WRC)<\/a>. <\/p>\nKivlehan lost her \u20ac90,000-a-year job as head of hospitals and speciality brands at Accord in October 2024 after a decade at the business.<\/p>\n
She told the WRC on Monday her redundancy from the business development role followed an \u201cattack\u201d on her abilities by the company\u2019s managing director in Ireland when she asked for a pay rise and ended up on a coaching plan. <\/p>\n
The MD, Padraig O\u2019Brien, said in evidence to the WRC that Accord\u2019s focus since setting up here in 2008 was generic, off-patent and \u201cbiosimilar\u201d medicines. <\/p>\n
However, the multinational\u2019s leadership decided in 2023 that it would change course towards \u201cpioneering patented products\u201d under a five-year plan to diversify the business, O\u2019Brien said. <\/p>\n
Accord decided to merge Kivlehan\u2019s job with a vacant marketing post to create one job for a candidate with \u201csufficient clinical knowledge\u201d for this new endeavour, he said.<\/p>\n
On 17th September 2024, the tribunal heard, a company vice president announced that there would be \u201ca limited number of redundancies\u201d across the Europe, Middle East and North Africa (EMENA) region. <\/p>\n
Counsel for the complainant, Thea Kennedy, instructed by Crushell & Co, put it to Mr O\u2019Brien in cross-examination that her client would say she was told \u201cIreland would be safe\u201d when the redundancies were announced. <\/p>\n
He decided to \u201ckeep the team calm and tell them they weren\u2019t to be impacted, and I would pick up the conversations as subtly as possible with those who were being impacted,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Kennedy put it to him it would have come as a surprise to those staff facing redundancy \u201cafter being told Ireland was safe\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cIrrespective of any prior conversation, it was a shock for her,\u201d O\u2019Brien said of a meeting with Ms Kivlehan a week later, when she was put on notice her job was at risk. <\/p>\n
In her own evidence, Kivlehan told the WRC her area of business was performing strongly and had exceeded financial targets by \u201cdouble-digit percentages\u201d when in early 2024, when she approached O\u2019Brien in February to ask about a pay rise. <\/p>\n
Kivlehan had scored three out of five in her 2023 performance rating, when she had medical absences for a surgery, the hearing was told. <\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien\u2019s response, after asking her to set out her case in writing, was to tell her that he was \u201cstruggling to rate me three and that I was going to be a two\u201d in 2024 Kivlehan said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was a bit blindsided. I was then told I would be doing a development plan and a call would be scheduled with HR,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien\u2019s account of this was: \u201cI made it clear, actually Tracey, you know, while you think you should be rewarded more than currently, I felt I wasn\u2019t getting a performance that was getting my and the business\u2019s performance expectation at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTracey was upset about that frank discussion,\u201d he said, but added that Ms Kivlehan worked towards the tasks that were set and \u201cembraced that process\u201d. <\/p>\n
His evidence was that it was \u201can informal process\u201d for staff to \u201cupskill\u201d rather than a \u201cformal performance process\u201d. <\/p>\n
He said the development process was concluded to his satisfaction in August or September, having been extended due to a medical absence for Ms Kivlehan in July 2024, with the \u201cdevelopment gaps\u201d closed up. <\/p>\n
Kivlehan said she considered this process \u201can attack on my ability\u201d based on what she considered to be \u201cunfair\u201d assertions about her performance, which she set out in detail. <\/p>\n
Kivlehan said she didn\u2019t know how the development process was resolved. \u201cI don\u2019t know, it just sort of filtered out. I don\u2019t recall a situation where it was done, closed and we can sign off and everything\u2019s finished,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
She said that when the redundancies were announced, senior managers in the Irish arm of the firm were told at a meeting \u201cwe could tell our teams Ireland was safe\u201d. <\/p>\n
Early the following week, Kivlehan was called to a meeting with Mr O\u2019Brien and the company\u2019s regional human resources (HR) director, Dirghayu \u201cDB\u201d Buch, at a hotel, the hearing was told. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was told that Ireland wasn\u2019t safe, basically, and my position was being made redundant, and I was asked if I had anything to say that could save my position,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey said to me I could go forward for that new position,\u201d Kivlehan said. She said she put it to them that from what she was being told, she didn\u2019t have the required skill-set and if she went for it, she \u201cwouldn\u2019t be considered\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when DB told me: \u201cThat\u2019s a fair assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under examination by Mary Fay, who was instructed by DLA Piper for the company, Mr Buch denied saying this in his evidence and said there was no such discussion. \u201cI completely dispute that comment,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Kivlehan\u2019s role was one of three positions eliminated in the firm\u2019s Irish arm \u2013 one of which was already vacant, he said. <\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien said Ms Kivlehan \u201cdidn\u2019t put herself forward\u201d for the new role incorporating her former job during the redundancy consultation process. The complainant said she never received the job description. <\/p>\n
Adjudication officer \u00dana Glazier-Farmer has adjourned the matter until later in the year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former senior manager at a multinational pharma firm says she was told she could reassure her staff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,1962,6465],"class_list":["post-422783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-work","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}