UK employee who did ‘no tasks’ while WFH wins unfair dismissal case

A man in the UK has won an unfair dismissal case, despite being found to have not done “any work” while working remotely from his parents’ house.

A man who was fired after working remotely 400km from his workplace has won an unfair dismissal case, despite being found to have completed “no tasks” during this period.

Nick Kitaruth worked in London as a security manager and was sacked for gross misconduct after “working from home” at his parents’ house in Cornwall, in England’s south-west, for four days in August 2023.

The company, OCS Security Limited, claimed he was never given permission to work from this location, which was about a five-hour drive away from his usual place of work.

However, after the case was recently heard at a London tribunal, a judge determined the company’s investigation into Mr Kitaruth has been carried out unfairly.

At the time of his dismissal, he was working as deputy security manager for the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Center in Westminster.

His normal place of work was in the building, however, he was allowed to work at home from time-to-time as part of an informal agreement with his boss, security account manager Craig Stride.

This was usually one to two days a week and Mr Kitaruth would send out a calendar invite closer to the time and include the client to let them know he was working from home on those days.

Nick Kitaruth’s current LinkedIn profile photo. Picture: LinkedIn

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The tribunal heard that August was a quieter period for the client and Mr Kitaruth asked his boss for permission to work from Cornwall between the 14th and 17th of that month in 2023.

Mr Stride told the tribunal that staff did not necessarily need to be working from their actual home address, provided they were always contactable and could get to site if required.

Though, the line manager claimed he would have never authorised four days working from home or from Cornwall.

Despite this, employment judge, Tamara Lewis, found that the security worker “genuinely believed” he had permission to work from his parents’ house for this period.

On August 14, 2023, at 1.01pm, Mr Stride sent Mr Kitaruth a WhatsApp message asking where he was and noting they had a meeting at the London office on the 16th.

Mr Kitaruth responded saying he wouldn’t be able to attend as he had told him he was working from Cornwall.

“Nick hold up. We had a discussion before Martin had to get involved and we didn’t confirm anything. Being the level of tasks outstanding it wouldn’t have been an option for a week and this would need to be planned. [I’ve] had no update on any tasks no handover. Jason was not aware. These things need confirming. Working from home also means working from home. And you’re not contactable,” Mr Stride responded, before reiterating he needed him on site on Wednesday.

In a follow up voicemail, Mr Kitaruth told his boss that “we spoke about this and you said it would be fine”, before itemising various tasks he was doing and would do.

However, in her decision, Judge Lewis stated she had “doubts” that the employee “did any work” during his time in Cornwall.

Cornwall is a roughly five hour drive from London. Picture: Google Maps

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The tribunal heard that Mr Kitaruth said there “no tasks to be completed” during his time working from home and he had no physical meetings.

But an Investigation Report dated August 23, 2023, found he “failed to complete his work duties with both the client and employer”.

The tribunal heard Mr Stride had provided evidence confirming there were “numerous tasks” not completed, including meetings not attended, a failure to respond to certain emails and missed phone calls.

Mr Kitaruth was ultimately dismissed for gross misconduct following a disciplinary meeting in September 2023.

He appealed the decision, but the appeal was dismissed in March 2024.

In her ruling, Judge Lewis said it was “extremely poor practice” by the employer to delay hearing the appeal for so long.

Though she did not believe this made the dismissal unfair, but noted the dismissal was unfair for other reasons.

The employee was working from his parents’ house in Cornwall. Picture: iStock

The judge suspected there had been several conversations where there was a “degree of ambiguity” in how things had been left.

“Mr Stride had allowed a completely informal system whereby agreements for home working were made verbally and were not noted down anywhere other than a post-agreement outlook notification sent out by the claimant shortly before,” she said.

“Such a system was ripe for misunderstandings.”

Judge Lewis did not accept Mr Stride’s claim that he would have never agreed to the four days working from home, stating that, if this was the case, he would have denied Mr Kitaruth’s request when it was first raised.

“I also find it not implausible that Mr Stride had initially agreed, or seemed to agree, the arrangement, even though it was at such a distance, because August is usually a relatively quiet time,” she said in her ruling.

She said that if Mr Stride had been interviewed prior to the dismissal then it would have shown how informal the working from home arrangements were.

The tribunal also found that, on Mr Kitaruth’s behalf, there was a “failure to respond to the specific queries of his manager” while in Cornwall and “apparent failure to do any work at that time”.

Given this, Judge Lewis ruled Mr Kitaruth’s total compensation would be deducted by 50 per cent, with the amount to be decided at a later date.

“However, for the reasons I have explained, I find that no reasonable employer would have failed to interview Mr Stride formally before reaching a decision to dismiss the claimant,” the judge said.

“For this reason, the dismissal was unfair.”

Originally published as UK employee who did ‘no tasks’ while WFH wins unfair dismissal case