Audi Australia has been harshly criticized for a lack of HR expertise, after a dealership service advisor was unfairly dismissed.
Fair Work Commission (FWC) Commissioner Jennifer Hunt harshly criticized Audi Australia, after a dealership service advisor at Audi Indooroopilly was dismissed because his customer service KPI score was in the bottom 50% of all Audi service advisors in the country.
The KPI target effectively meant that the performance of half of all Audi’s service advisors across Australia would be considered unsatisfactory, which Commissioner Hunt didn’t accept.
The employee also wasn’t given an opportunity to respond to the reason for his dismissal, which Commissioner Hunt said was “demonstrative of an absence of dedicated human resource management specialists” at the company.
“For such a large organisation not to have some human resource management specialists is astounding,” she said.
The employer claimed the dismissal was because it had “not seen any sustained improvement” in his performance.
In his unfair dismissal claim, the employee submitted that his CEM score was not a key indicator of his performance and didn’t provide a valid reason for his dismissal.
“How satisfied are you with the quality of work carried out on your vehicle?” was one of the survey questions.
Commissioner Hunt found this was an “inherent unfairness” in the KPI as it measured the complete service experience and ranked it against the service advisor only.
In finding the employee’s dismissal unfair, Commissioner Hunt ordered the Audi dealership to pay him $9,134.60 plus superannuation in compensation.
