Ignored “good mornings” and orders sent by Slack

Tao (Selina) Qu was the supervisor of Monards’ luxury watch and jewellery store in Surfers Paradise, a small shop with a handful of staff. Around March 2020 a new team leader, Tak Wing Wong, arrived from a competitor, Hourglass. Ms Qu said that within months he was suggesting she go and work there instead.

Commissioner Hunt went through the incidents one by one, and not all of them were bullying. Moving the timesheets and hiring to Mr Wong was a reasonable business decision, and asking Ms Qu to wrap watches was a reasonable direction. On the day Ms Qu fainted at work, the Commissioner watched the store footage and found Mr Wong had not acted unreasonably, apart from some condescending cleaning instructions. She also found Ms Qu had once screamed at him, and told her not to do it again.

But much else was proved. He did repeatedly suggest she could work for the competitor. Standing next to her while serving a client, he sent her a Slack message asking her to bring the client a bottle of water: “unsuitable, unreasonable and unfathomable”. He posted a photo of an untidy counter to a group chat that senior management could see, told her she was getting a warning, withdrew it, and then gave her another for closing a cabinet too loudly: “a calculated act to intimidate”. He put her on a performance improvement plan that “was not warranted”. And two days running he ignored her “Good morning”, the second time replying only “I heard it”. When the company’s director then told the team that greetings were optional, the Commissioner called it “a complete failure to meet her duty of care”.

Monards had no bullying policy, and staff complaints about Mr Wong had gone nowhere. Finding a risk the bullying would continue, the Commission made an order to stop Mr Wong bullying Ms Qu.