A senior manager at healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson has won a discrimination case after she was ‘racially profiled’ by her white boss.
Tolulope Fayokun’s relationship with Alessandra Toro was ‘fatally poisoned’ after her manager presented her with a document outlining the ‘Nigerian traits’ she exhibited.
Mrs Toro had carried out research into Nigerian workplaces and inferred she was lazy by saying she operated under ‘African time’, an employment tribunal heard.
She told her employee ‘I’m different from Nigeria’ and said whereas she sees deadlines as ‘fixed’ and set in stone, a Nigerian workplace is ‘fluid’.
After Mrs Fayokun was later dismissed, she sued bosses for race discrimination and is now in line for compensation after an employment judge concluded she had been unfairly ‘racially profiled’.
Johnson & Johnson manager Tolulope Fayokun’s relationship with boss Alessandra Toro was ‘fatally poisoned’ after the latter presented her with a document outlining the ‘Nigerian traits’ she exhibited, a tribunal heard (Pictured: Johnson & Johnson’s Pinewood campus)
The Reading tribunal heard Mrs Fayokun began working as a senior manager at the US multinational company in April 2017 specialising in global strategic insights.
The hearing was told she got off to a ‘terrific start’ and bosses said she demonstrated a ‘strong leadership’.
Mrs Fayokun – who is a dual British and Nigerian national – reported to Director for Strategic Insights and Analytics Mrs Toro, who considered the pair had ‘a good relationship’ in which they’d exchange gifts and snacks, discuss personal matters and share birthday lunches.
As her time at the company progressed, Mrs Fayokun started to feel ‘snowed under’ by her workload, the tribunal heard.
She said she felt as if she were ‘working round the clock, barely getting four hours sleep a day, and she was not seeing her children’.
The senior manager told Mrs Toro this and claimed that her boss ‘scolded’ her for turning down requests to carry out projects.
The tribunal heard that in April 2018 the pair went on a work trip to Jacksonville, Florida, USA, during which Mrs Fayokun claimed Mrs Toro ignored her for their first day there.
The Reading tribunal heard Mrs Fayokun began working as a senior manager at the US multinational company in April 2017 specialising in global strategic insights
Upon returning from the problematic trip, the pair joined for a one to one meeting in which the senior manager was presented with what she described as a ‘racially profiling document’.
According to Mrs Fayokun, she told her boss at the start of the meeting that she wanted to discuss the breakdown in their communication and relationship.
In response, Mrs Toro allegedly said ‘I know I’ve been poking you’ and proceeded to explain that she had ‘researched Nigeria and realised that she was very different to Nigerians in many ways’.
It was said she then went through a document she was holding and made a number of comments about differences between her and Nigerians including, Nigerians not keeping to time and saying ‘I’m different from Nigeria’.
According to the tribunal, in this conversation there were references to ‘African time’.
Mrs Toro then put the ‘Berlitz report’ to one side ‘having made her point’ and moved on to other topics.
The senior manager said she was ‘very upset and pained’ by what was said to her and said this was the point that she gave up on trying to repair her relationship with her boss.
However, Mrs Toro viewed the encounter differently, and insisted she showed Mrs Fayokun a report on ‘cultural fluency’.
Mrs Toro said: ‘I found the reports obtained through this process to be helpful to me.
‘For example, the fact that the Nigerian working profile was “fluid” was in contrast to my personal “fixed” preferences meaning that whereas I see deadlines as fixed and set in stone, this indicated to me that I should not adopt or assume the same approach with someone who identified with a Nigerian workstyle.
‘In addition, the report assisted me in understanding that in contrast to my direct approach, [Mrs Fayokun’s] preference was an indirect approach and so I identified that I could try and scale back my approach to bridge the gap between myself and my direct reports.’
Mrs Fayokun said she had suspected her boss of racism and during the interaction was ‘furious but had to put on a brave face’.
After raising a grievance against her bosses, she was subsequently dismissed in early 2020 due to continual absences.
Employment Judge Andrew Gumbiti-Zimuto concluded she had been discriminated against by the ‘profiling exercise’ used by Mrs Toro.
He said: ‘It aligned Mrs Fayokun with a Nigerian workstyle in a manner which contained some lazy stereotypes such as references to “African time”, and which Mrs Fayokun found to be insensitive and upsetting.
‘The manner in which this profiling exercise was communicated to Mrs Fayokun involved Alessandra Toro stating to Mrs Fayokun that the differences between their working styles ‘this is why I have been poking you’.
‘In communicating the findings of this document, it was stated to Mrs Fayokun that she possessed ‘Nigerian traits’.
‘We are satisfied that Mrs Fayokun could reasonably consider that she was disadvantaged in the workplace by reason of being told that this exercise had been carried out and was being actively used to manage her.
‘The Tribunal is also satisfied that Alessandra Toro told Mrs Fayokun that she was different to Nigerians, i.e. fixed versus fluid etc.’
Her compensation will be decided at a later hearing.
Additional claims she made of unfair dismissal, victimisation, harassment, religious and race discrimination were dismissed.
