1 The claimant commenced employment with the respondent company as an associate portfolio manager dealing in foreign exchange in October 2021. On 9 March 2026, he was dismissed with one month’s salary in lieu of notice in accordance with s 11(1) of the Employment Act 1968 (“EA”). He contends that the dismissal was without just cause or excuse within the meaning of s 14(2) of the EA, and seeks compensation of $20,000, representing approximately three months of his monthly salary of $6,500.

2 The reason cited by the respondent for his dismissal was unsatisfactory performance, specifically in respect of several upstream metrics used by the respondent to measure what the claimant, as a portfolio manager, was doing on a day-to-day basis to contribute to revenue generation. These metrics were primarily directed at assessing his ability to carry out consistent, high-quality engagement that builds and maintains client relationships and identifies new business opportunities. They did so by evaluating his daily proactive call volume and duration with clients, the quality of those calls, the number of weekly transactional opportunities logged, and the percentage of opportunities converted into actual transactions.

3 The claimant had been identified by his former manager as having low call activity and insufficient client engagement and was accordingly placed on a coaching plan from 30 June 2025 to 5 August 2025. The coaching plan was the first step preceding a performance improvement plan (“PIP”) for under-performing employees under the respondent’s performance management policies. It was focused on increasing the claimant’s call activity, call quality, and the logging of transactional opportunities. During the coaching plan period, the claimant met many, though not all, of the targets. His improvement and effort were considered as sufficient for the coaching plan to conclude satisfactorily.

4 The improvement, however, was not sustained. Over the period from September to December 2025, the claimant’s call activity and quality—the same issues that had prompted the coaching plan—remained well below the team average. Specifically, the average proactive call time across other team members was approximately 86 minutes per day, against the claimant’s approximately 17.27 minutes per day. Beyond this low call activity, his opportunity conversion rates were also said to be below the team average, indicating that the claimant was not adequately engaging his portfolio clients, was logging few new opportunities, and was converting a low proportion of those logged into completed transactions.

5 He was therefore placed on a PIP from 28 January 2026 to 27 February 2026. During the first week, the claimant failed three weekly targets: his average call time was 59 minutes per day against a target of 90 minutes; his proactive calls averaged 12.6 per day against a target of more than 15; and his upside opportunities conversion stood at 60% against a target of at least 70%. He was assessed to have satisfactorily met the remaining three weekly targets: he logged five upside opportunities, exceeding the target of three; he was considered to have passed the qualitative target which required him to submit an example of how he demonstrated a growth or collaborative mindset; and he was assigned a call quality score of 7 out of 10. This call quality score is assigned by his manager based on her review of calls made by the claimant using a call recording platform. The calls she reviewed each week were chosen by the claimant himself, on the basis of those he considered the best demonstration of his performance. She would then provide written feedback for each call, covering areas such as call openings, discovery questions, active listening, client engagement techniques, articulation of value propositions, and closing techniques.

6 Performance declined in the second week, with the claimant achieving only two of the six weekly targets: he logged six upside opportunities and satisfied the qualitative target by submitting an example demonstrating a collaborative mindset. As for the remaining targets, his average call time dropped to 41 minutes per day; his proactive calls fell to 8.2 per day; his call quality scored 6.7; and his conversion rate dipped sharply to 16%.

7 In the third week, the claimant was assessed as having failed to meet all six weekly targets. His call time averaged 53 minutes per day; his proactive calls stood at 10.75 per day; his call quality scored 6.8; only one opportunity was logged against a target of at least three; his conversion rate was 0%; and he did not submit any example demonstrating a growth or collaborative mindset.

8 In the fourth and final week of the PIP, the claimant was assessed to have achieved only one weekly target: three opportunities were logged, meeting the target. He failed to meet the other five targets: his average call time was 46.2 minutes per day; his proactive calls stood at 8.4 per day; his call quality scored 6 out of 10; conversion was 66%, just short of the 70% threshold; and no example of a growth or collaborative mindset example was provided.

9 Following the conclusion of the PIP period, the claimant’s manager assessed him as having failed the PIP. Not only had he failed to exhibit any improvement on the evaluated metrics, but his performance had also generally declined week on week over the course of the PIP. A decision was therefore made to terminate his employment. The termination was not effected immediately as the claimant was on medical leave in the week of 2 March 2026, and the termination meeting was accordingly postponed until he returned to work on 9 March 2026, whereupon he was informed of his dismissal with payment in lieu of one month’s notice.

10 I address first the claimant’s contention that the PIP outcome was pre-determined and that he was in fact dismissed either on account of discrimination for his medical condition of rheumatoid arthritis—which he said caused him physical limitations and affected the manner in which he could carry out his operational duties—or that he was retrenched.

11 There is no evidence to support either allegation. The respondent’s unchallenged evidence is that it had accommodated the claimant’s medical condition by liberally allowing him to work from home, given that his functions could be discharged remotely and that a work-from-home arrangement would not affect his performance, and that it had shortly thereafter hired a replacement following his dismissal.

12 I accept that the respondent dismissed the claimant on the ground of performance concerns. In my view, such dismissal constituted just cause or excuse within the meaning of s 14(2) of the EA.

13 The claimant appeared to have difficulty accepting the respondent’s determination that his performance was unsatisfactory. He maintained that there were no performance issues on the basis that he consistently “achieved his portfolio revenue targets and operated as a top revenue earner for the company”. It was not disputed that the claimant exceeded his revenue targets in the first quarter of 2026, although whether he consistently achieved portfolio revenue targets and could be characterised as a top revenue earner depends on how those terms are defined and over what period.

14 But all of this was beside the point because the respondent’s determination that his performance was unsatisfactory had little to do with whether the claimant attained revenue targets. Its position was that a portfolio manager’s performance cannot be assessed reliably by revenue alone, because revenue can be generated by market movements or large one-off client transactions without any meaningful input from the portfolio manager. Clients may transact regardless of whether the portfolio manager engaged with them, and a portfolio manager may record decent revenue figures in a favourable market or with a naturally active client base even whilst doing very little. What the respondent expects of a portfolio manager, rather, is consistent engagement in the activities that are said to generate sustained and improving revenue: upstream, high-quality client engagement measured primarily by the quantity and quality of call activity, which in turn drives downstream metrics including opportunities, conversions and, finally, revenue.

15 The respondent’s explanation here is coherent and rational, and I see no basis for either the claimant or this tribunal to say that it ought to have placed less weight on the upstream metrics and more on the downstream in evaluating its employees’ competencies and performance. In this regard, I am satisfied that the respondent honestly and reasonably held the belief that the claimant’s performance was unsatisfactory, and that there was reasonable ground for such belief.

16 I also find it difficult to accept the claimant’s contention that the PIP was procedurally defective. The metrics on which he was being assessed had been clearly communicated to him at the outset of the PIP, and none of it should have been unfamiliar to the claimant given the considerable overlap with the earlier coaching plan. Although his manager had not gone through each target with him during the weekly review sessions, choosing instead to focus on feedback about his call quality, I see no issue with this. The claimant could readily monitor his own performance on the various data tracking platforms, and he already knew that his PIP performance could have an adverse impact on his continuing employment. By that stage, it was not necessary for his manager to walk him through each metric when he had the resources and the know-how to work on the identified areas of improvement himself, and he could have raised any of his concerns with his manager during these weekly review sessions.

17 Finally, the claimant suggested that the targets set in the PIP were unrealistic. I accept that the targets were perhaps on the higher end—a point acknowledged by the claimant’s manager, who explained that this was intended to drive improvement. There may well be room for reasonable disagreement as to the best managerial approach towards driving performance improvement, but I am satisfied that all the targets were generally attainable. I say “generally” because, being set on the higher end, there may be days or weeks where meeting a target in full may be difficult even for a well-performing employee. To illustrate: the target for average call duration was 90 minutes per day, whereas the respondents’ evidence was that the daily average for the rest of the team was approximately 86 minutes, which suggests that attaining the target of 90 minutes consistently could be challenging.

18 Even so, I accept the respondent’s evidence that the expectation was that the claimant would at least come reasonably close to the targets, and that his failure to meet any or some of the weekly PIP targets did not spell termination as a matter of course. The respondent would still assess each case individually, looking for demonstrable improvement. This was also the case with the coaching plan—although the claimant had not met all the targets, he had nonetheless been considered to have passed the coaching plan satisfactorily based on his overall performance. In this case, however, the claimant did not fall short of the targets by a small margin—he fell considerably short, with his performance appearing to decline as the weeks passed.

19 That deteriorating trajectory may, in fact, be explained by the claimant’s own admission that he had already been looking for alternative employment during the PIP period, to the extent that he interviewed with his current employer around the second week of the PIP and was able to commence his new job in the middle of April 2026. The failure to pass the PIP, then, may not have been because the targets were unrealistic or the outcome was pre-determined by the respondent, as the claimant suggests.

20 For the foregoing reasons, I find that the claimant’s claim that he was dismissed without just cause or excuse fails, and it is accordingly dismissed. I make no order as to costs or disbursements, as none were sought by the respondent.