\u201cThese failures breached the duty of good faith in an employment relationship and the duty to provide a safe workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n
The late night texts, emails and calls<\/p>\n
According to the decision, Kennedy worked at the recruitment agency as an account manager.<\/p>\n
Known as a candidate, the colleague, who was in Kennedy\u2019s caseload, was employed by RPL and given work placements. <\/p>\n
It was Kennedy\u2019s role to be available to candidates and to communicate with them about their placements with RPL clients.<\/p>\n
When she began to get inappropriate comments from the candidate in person, by phone, and by text message, she initially thought it was harmless.<\/p>\n
But he then began contacting her late at night and appearing at her office unannounced.<\/p>\n
In April 2024, Kennedy met the national key accounts manager, Paddy O\u2019Regan.<\/p>\n
The Employment Relations Authority ordered RPL to pay $20,00 in compensation. Photo \/ Stock<\/p>\n
She told the authority that by that stage, she had stopped responding to the candidate because she could no longer cope with his behaviour.<\/p>\n
While in the office, Kennedy said she heard another colleague take a call from the candidate.<\/p>\n
She said she heard him say; \u201cI don\u2019t want to work with that b**** she\u2019s not answering my phone calls\u201d, or words to that effect.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Regan then told Kennedy, without hearing her explanation, that it was her job to communicate with him.<\/p>\n
When O\u2019Regan next visited the office, Kennedy told him about her experiences with the candidate.<\/p>\n
She said O\u2019Regan was alarmed and told her to terminate the candidate\u2019s placements.<\/p>\n
The candidate later texted Kennedy that evening, calling her a \u201cnark\u201d.<\/p>\n
But management then concluded it did not have grounds to dismiss the candidate or take disciplinary action, as most of the communication was verbal.<\/p>\n
Safety measures were later put in place, so Kennedy felt safe at work. <\/p>\n
Those included having the office door locked when there were no scheduled visits from candidates and having O\u2019Regan manage the candidate in question.<\/p>\n
Despite the late-night calls stopping, the candidate continued to email and text Kennedy during work hours.<\/p>\n
He sent her an email with \u201cembarrassed\u201d in the subject field.<\/p>\n
It said he was sorry for the texts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t mean to scare ya, I was just letting you know how much you have the ability to win my soul. I went to a funeral on Monday, I feel dumb because I failed you.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut anyways I\u2019m missing something good which was our friendship. I know it\u2019s not going to be the same but at least once we\u2019ve had a good laugh it will be more fun. I miss the fun of having a hot boss. So will let you get back to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The candidate was again told to stop contacting Kennedy. But later that day, he turned up at her office while she was alone.<\/p>\n
She told the authority that he stood at the locked door and asked her to let him in so he could speak with her. <\/p>\n
Kennedy responded by saying she could not let him in, which he had already been told, and that she was not working with him.<\/p>\n
The following day, he sent her another message saying he\u2019d told his girlfriend to leave because he was having fun every time he met with Kennedy.<\/p>\n
It also made reference to her driving safely home, apologised for \u201cbeing an egg\u201d and said he did not want Kennedy to be afraid of him.<\/p>\n
She then asked O\u2019Regan if she could work from home as she no longer felt safe. <\/p>\n
Kennedy said she would return to the office once they\u2019d filled a vacant role, which meant another person would be in the office with her.<\/p>\n
She said she told O\u2019Regan that if she could not work from home, she would have no option but to resign because she did not feel safe.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Regan said they could \u201ccall it a day,\u201d meaning the employment relationship was at an end, she told the ERA.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Regan drove her home and she left her laptop, work phone and all work-related items at the office.<\/p>\n
In an email to the company following her resignation, Kennedy said she\u2019d \u201cnever felt bullied or harassed or unappreciated or to feel second class, uncared for and worthless in any of my workplaces until now\u201d.<\/p>\n
Still emotional over the incident <\/p>\n
Kennedy attempted to engage in mediation with the company for compensation for constructive dismissal, but was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
She told the authority that even now, when she thought about the candidate coming to the office and trying to open the locked door, she became emotional.<\/p>\n
ERA\u2019s Kennedy-Martin said it was clear Kennedy resigned because she felt unsafe in the workplace.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was particularly so because she formed the view that RPL had not taken her concerns about the candidate seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
In RPL\u2019s submissions, it said it could not have known how serious the matter was because Kennedy failed to notify it of all her concerns. <\/p>\n
It was accepted that Kennedy did not provide all communications to management after the plan was put in place.<\/p>\n
However, RPL accepted there were communications it knew about that were inappropriate, crossed boundaries and at least one previous comment that was unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cA fair and reasonable employer could be expected not to discount anything said verbally from its consideration of the matter when the concerns were first raised with it,\u201d Kennedy-Martin found.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is particularly so given it was accepted by RPL that at least some of the text message communication was inappropriate and stepped over a line but any inquiry beyond that stopped at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kennedy-Martin was satisfied that the resignation was caused by RPL\u2019s breach of its duties to provide a safe workplace and the duty of good faith.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation Ms Kennedy found herself in was serious, given the initial decision about the seriousness of her concerns was based on partial information and was not fully investigated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the plan breached and no alternatives other than locking the door which was not sustainable long term, it was reasonably foreseeable Ms Kennedy would resign.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to the compensation, RPL was ordered to pay Kennedy 5.5 weeks of lost wages.<\/p>\n
Brianna McIlraith is a Queenstown-based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the lower South Island. She has been a journalist since 2018 and has had a strong interest in business and financial journalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On one occasion, he attempted to get into Kennedy\u2019s office, which she had locked, demanding that she let…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[69894,3595,19956,8985,48953,42,43,19334,384,4227,2202,40,38,41,39,6202,12767],"class_list":["post-442415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-20k","tag-by","tag-candidate","tag-era","tag-harassed","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-payout","tag-people","tag-recruitment","tag-remarkable","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-wins","tag-worker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}