An HR manager who lost a case for discrimination and harassment after being told his work was ‘messy’ has been ordered to pay costs by the employment tribunal.

Thomas Shevlin began working for publishing company John Wiley & Sons as a senior HR operations manager in May 2022. He had ADHD and traits of dyslexia, the tribunal heard, but had not disclosed these to his employer.

In May 2023, his manager Rebecca Roycroft met with him for his end-of-year review. During this meeting, she told him: “When Thomas is very busy he has a tendency to rush the work he is doing, which can culminate in typos in emails, use of capitals when they shouldn’t be and sentences that don’t make sense.”

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Roycroft acknowledged that Shevlin was “super busy” but added that the mistakes were “not good for his personal brand when dealing with stakeholders from across the globe, as it can be seen as messy work”.

Shortly after, Shevlin resigned from the post, having already secured another job. He then filed a claim for disability discrimination against the publisher.

Shevlin has now been ordered to pay John Wiley & Sons’ costs totalling £20,000, in monthly instalments of £1,000, after the tribunal found the employer’s actions did not meet the threshold for harassment and discrimination.

In the original judgment published in February 2024, employment judge Massarella said that “although the claimant was deeply humiliated and offended by the comments… if that was his reaction, it was an unreasonable overreaction”.

For this reason, Shevlin’s claims were deemed not to be well-founded and dismissed.

The tribunal heard that Roycroft also has dyslexia and that she suspected Shevlin might also have it, but without his own disclosure, it was reasonable that she did not refer him to occupational health.

He “barely mentioned” feeling aggrieved by the comments his manager made in his review, the tribunal heard, even when raising a formal grievance against the way his departure from the business had been handled.

The judge also noted that only one medical report was submitted in court documents. An assessment that was carried out did not show a causal connection between his ADHD and the errors made during the course of his work.

The doctor assessing Shevlin concluded that his reading, comprehension and sentence composition were average, and there was “no finding or conclusion that the claimant had dyslexia or any traits of dyslexia”.

“In short, Ms Roycroft’s comments do not begin to approach the very high threshold for harassment,” the judge ruled.

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