{"id":1956,"date":"2025-04-29T21:24:34","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T20:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=1956"},"modified":"2025-04-29T21:40:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T20:40:34","slug":"train-wreck-at-edinburgh-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=1956","title":{"rendered":"Train Wreck at Edinburgh University"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"670\" src=\"https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-28-at-22.44.34-1024x670.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1958\" srcset=\"https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-28-at-22.44.34-1024x670.png 1024w, https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-28-at-22.44.34-300x196.png 300w, https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-28-at-22.44.34-768x503.png 768w, https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-28-at-22.44.34-1536x1005.png 1536w, https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot-2025-04-28-at-22.44.34.png 1864w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u200bThere&#8217;s been a spectacular smash-up by the Human Resources department at the University of Edinburgh. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/employment-tribunal-decisions\/professor-r-sheikholeslami-v-the-university-of-edinburgh-4102702-2012-and-1-other\" title=\"recent case\">recent case<\/a> involving Professor Roya Sheikholeslami and the University concluded with an emphatic ruling in her favour and a huge award.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a protracted legal battle spanning over a decade, an employment tribunal awarded Prof Sheikholeslami <a href=\"https:\/\/www.personneltoday.com\/hr\/unfair-dismissal-professor-sheikholeslami-v-university-of-edinburgh\/\" title=\"more than \u00a31 million\">more than \u00a31 million<\/a>, determining that she was unfairly dismissed by the university in 2012.\u200b She joined the University of Edinburgh in May 2007 as a professor of chemical process engineering. She was provided with a substantial start-up package, including funds for laboratory refurbishment.&nbsp;However, delays in the refurbishment process hindered her research activities.&nbsp;In 2010, she took a leave of absence due to work-related stress and depression. Two years later, she was dismissed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The tribunal found that the university repeatedly failed to follow proper procedures, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Unfair Dismissal<\/strong>:&nbsp;The university did not support Professor Sheikholeslami in renewing her work permit and failed to explore reasonable alternatives before terminating her employment.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Victimisation<\/strong>:&nbsp;She was victimised for raising concerns about gender discrimination within the <a href=\"https:\/\/eng.ed.ac.uk\" title=\"\">School of Engineering at Edinburgh University<\/a>. Some male Professors thought she was appointed <em>&#8220;because she was a women, not because she was good enough<\/em>\u201d. They then viewed her as a troublemaker for raising discrimination claims.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Disability Discrimination<\/strong>:&nbsp;The university mishandled her sickness absence and did not provide appropriate accommodations for her disability.\u200b<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The tribunal awarded her \u00a31,145,216.26, which included compensation for past and future loss, interest and a procedural uplift for repeated violations of ACAS codes of best practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is familiar catalogue of University HR failures listed<a href=\"https:\/\/hrzone.com\/1-million-wake-up-call-over-university-of-edinburghs-grievance-failures\/\" title=\"\"> here <\/a>.  Anyone who has had any dealings with their University HR department will not be surprised &#8212; they include<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>failure to follow university processes,<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>failure to follow ACAS guidelines (which can cause a 25% uplift in damages),<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>failure to show support and empathy during the process<\/strong>,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>repeated\u00a0miscommunications<\/strong>,<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>failure to investigate some grievances at all, dismissing them without investigation.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>How much did this cost the University? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The payout was \u00a31.1m. But the real cost was far greater. It was a costly 10 year legal fight during which Edinburgh University was represented by a barrister (David Reade KC) instructed by solicitors (Robin Turnbull of Anderson Strathern). There are also the wages of the internal university staff in Edinburgh University&#8217;s own HR and legal departments, who will have worked on this case for more than a decade. And there is the lost opportunity cost of members of the department not getting grants or doing productive work for 10 yrs. The highest costs are often the missed opportunity costs that can\u2019t be quantified or compensated. They affect both personal outcomes and broader societal ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At a conservative estimate, the true cost of this train wreck must be at least \u00a33m. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>A University of Edinburgh spokesperson said: \u201cWhile we respect the judgment, we do not comment on individual cases and won\u2019t provide a further statement on the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Did anyone take responsibility for this crash?  Edinburgh has an &#8220;<em>HR Senior Leadership Team, which oversees the People Strategy and People Plan, includes the HR Director, four HR Deputy Directors and the Director of HR Services.&#8221;<\/em> Did the well-paid Director of HR resign because of repeated failures of his staff whom he had failed to train properly? Did anyone in the School of Engineering &#8212; which incredibly has an Athena SWAN award &#8212; face disciplinary action for gender discrimination?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shakespeare Martineau (to whom this must have come as no surprise as they are Cambridge University&#8217;s lawyers) commented <a href=\"https:\/\/hrzone.com\/1-million-wake-up-call-over-university-of-edinburghs-grievance-failures\/\" title=\"here\">here<\/a> that universities should &#8220;<em>use this as a cautionary tale to review their own grievance procedures.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most universities have a huge problem with their HR departments. Their employment practices would embarrass most of the public or private sector.  The legal consequences each year run into many millions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u200bThere&#8217;s been a spectacular smash-up by the Human Resources department at the University of Edinburgh. The recent case involving Professor Roya Sheikholeslami and the University concluded with an emphatic ruling in her favour and a huge award.&nbsp; After a protracted legal battle spanning over a decade, an employment tribunal awarded [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1956"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1973,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions\/1973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}