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Ordering workers to join Zoom or Teams calls with their camera on can amount to disability discrimination, an employment tribunal has found.
Some workers can be “anxious” or “overwhelmed” by having their camera on and employers could end up being liable to pay damages, according to the judgment.
The ruling was issued as a travel consultant who has anxiety successfully sued her company because she was told she must join the meeting with her camera on, making her feel “overwhelmed”.
Laura Tait was asked to “start with it on and to see how she went”, but she could not cope and had to log off from the meeting.
Ms Tait also asked to do fewer voice calls with customers.
She successfully sued her employer for failing to provide a number of “reasonable adjustments” – a type of disability discrimination – including the “ability to join meetings with camera off” and letting her do fewer voice calls.
‘Stress caused absences related to anxiety’
The employment tribunal, held in Croydon, heard that Ms Tait worked for Holiday Extras as a travel consultant selling insurance policies from June 2021, where worked from home for the company’s call centre.
The majority of her work, about 80 per cent, involved voice calling customers while the rest of the time, she could communicate with them via email or online messaging through live chat.
In April 2022, she told her manager that she had better energy levels when doing live chat work, and that the stress of other work had been causing “absences related to her anxiety”.
Her absences increased from November 2022, and in April 2023 she asked for “emergency time off” because of “burnout”.
In July that year, she told a new line manager that “the only thing that would help her” would be doing more live chat and email shifts, but she was told that “she could not be scheduled more chats and emails than average due to fairness and workloads”.
She was told that her bosses “would absolutely try and put her on chats/emails every week where possible”, but after more discussions, she was not given any permanent adjustments.
‘Super anxious’
She then attended a remote training session in August 2023.
The tribunal was told: “On 24 August 2023 [Ms Tait] was doing a remote training session by video and asked to have her camera off as she felt ‘super anxious’.
“She was asked to start with it on and to see how she went. However, she was not able to cope and so she was told that was fine and to log off.”
She was signed off sick in October 2023 with work-related stress and anxiety, and has not returned to work since, according to the tribunal.
In April 2024, she complained that she had been discriminated against because her adjustment requests had not been granted. However, her grievance was dismissed in October, and her appeal against this decision was not granted.
She was granted a limited number of adjustments that month, including having her “camera off in meetings”.
‘Significant sickness absences’
As a result of several reasonable adjustments not being made, Ms Tait had “significant sickness absences”, the tribunal found.
On the video call incident, Employment Judge Liz Ord said: “[Holiday Extras] did not allow the requested adjustment on 24 August 2023, when they were first made aware of [Ms Tait] being overwhelmed.
“However, they did not require her to come on camera thereafter and [the COO] formally agreed to the adjustment on 4 October 2024.
“Nonetheless, we take the view that the adjustment was reasonable and should have been put in place from 24 August 2023.”
The judge added that Ms Tait was left with “substantial disadvantages in the workplace” because of the company’s failure to make reasonable adjustments.
The compensation Ms Tait will receive will be decided at a later date. Other claims which she made for failures to provide reasonable adjustments were dismissed.
