Lidl employee who faced age discrimination during redundancy given compensation
Wayne Norman was dismissed after being told he had been ‘marked down’ for not having a degree or construction qualification during redundancy process.
A Lidl employee who felt “punished” by redundancy criteria requiring him to have a degree or qualification and was unfairly dismissed has been awarded £50,926 by a tribunal.
Wayne Norman worked as a senior construction consultant for the supermarket chain in Doncaster where he was responsible for overseeing the building and refurbishment of regional stores before being made redundant in March 2023.
At the point of his dismissal, he was 63 years old, had been employed by Lidl for just under 23 years and had undertaken around 77 construction projects, the tribunal in Sheffield heard.
Mr Norman was first told of proposed redundancies during a meeting on January 30 2023 after which he discovered he was among three construction consultants up for redundancy with only one role available as part of the restructure.
The other two consultants were both in their 30s at the time.
After learning one of them had been successful in securing the job, Mr Norman met with his line manager Liam Schofield who informed him he had been “marked down for not having ‘relevant construction qualifications’ in that you do not have a construction degree”, the tribunal heard.
