The employers of the estate agent who sued them for unfair constructive dismissal would do well to read MachiavelliNiccolò Machiavelli had an important piece of advice about office politics: “If an injury has to be done to a man,” he writes in The Prince, “it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.” Most of us can relate to that.It’s likely that whoever accidentally insulted Nicholas Walker, the take-no-prisoners manager of the Rickmansworth branch of Robsons Estate Agents, by giving him a second-rate desk, hadn’t read Machiavelli’s 1532 tract. Because Walker, no doubt thinking of Machiavelli’s subsequent invocation – “it is safer to be feared than loved because fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails” – immediately dragged his ashen-faced employers to an employment tribunal where he successfully sued them for unfair constructive dismissal. They probably really regret giving him that desk.Holmes and Moriarty, the new authorised Sherlock Holme...
An estate agent successfully sued his employer for unfair constructive dismissal after being given a second-rate desk in a less prestigious location, perceived as a demotion and a drop in status among peers, highlighting the importance of status in office politics.
