'Best tech employer of the year' threatened trainee with £15k penalty fee for quitting to look after his sick mum
- Reference: 1608551109
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/12/21/sparta_global_employment_tribunal/
- Source link:
The London-headquartered firm, which boasts of delivering "top business and technology professionals", in fact forces its trainees to spend three months without pay before locking them into a two-year contract.
If these so-called "Spartans" want out before that two-year period ends, the company threatens them with a £22,000 "training fee", as Croydon Employment Tribunal found.
A Mr N Ofonagoro filed suit against Sparta Global for the return of £2,200 in unlawfully withheld pay after he quit before his two-year contract had ended. Rather than contest the case, Sparta Global paid 26-year-old Mr Ofonagoro the cash, hoping he'd withdraw the case, and then didn't bother turning up for the tribunal hearing.
Employment Judge Ian Truscott QC wasn't fooled, however, and in [1]a damning judgment he accepted all of Mr Ofonagoro's claims.
Sparta Global boasts of supplying IT contractors to the Home Office, mobile network Three and the Ministry of Justice. Yet the quality of their training process will come under scrutiny following this Employment Tribunal ruling.
Describing the former trainee's £23,000-a-year contract, Judge Truscott said trainees would attend unpaid training for three months before their salaries kicked in: "The claimant had no right to terminate the training contract except in the first 14 days and [only] then, providing the claimant had not started any Placement. Thus, for example, if the claimant had resigned on day 15, according to the training contract, he would be liable to repay £22,000."
The £22k demand could be reduced depending on how long the trainee had worked for Sparta Global before quitting. A maximum reduction of 75 per cent was available for people who walked between 18 and 24 months after starting a placement with a client firm.
As for the quality of Sparta's training, the judge's findings were clear:
All training was provided in-house by the respondent and none procured from any external supplier. The trainers did not have any specific level of qualification. The claimant's allocated 'coach' had been coding for 18 months. Most of the training was self-learning… Although the respondent claimed that the trainee would continue to be trained, in practice, at the end of 3 months, the training effectively ceased.
Sparta Global's website quotes one of its "Spartans" as saying: "My time at the Sparta Academy may have even overprepared me!" That person, the website claims, now works for the Home Office.
Before quitting in mid-2019, eight months into his job with Sparta, Mr Ofonagoro asked bosses if he could be placed with a London-based client because his mother was sick and his previous two placements had been outside the capital.
The "best tech employer of the year" rejected his request and when he explained the reasons, responded by threatening to sack him and demanding he pay them his "training costs". When he called the company's bluff and quit, it hit him with an "early termination fee" of £15,000, withholding a total of £2,200 from his final paycheques.
Sparta Global was recently honoured with the title "Best Tech Employer of the Year (50-500 employees)" by the UK-based Women in Tech organisation. A press release on the campaign group's website said of Sparta Global: "They offer free tech training and are constantly running initiatives to address the gender balance."
Sparta Global's own press release about the award said: "Our trainees receive free tech training so our female hires can develop the fundamental skills they need to thrive in their careers – irrespective of background or previous experiences."
Sparta Global's contempt for Mr Ofonagoro also stretched to the legal process. Mr Ofonagoro's solicitors asked for legal disclosure of documents for the employment tribunal. The company "did not provide a substantive response to that letter". Instead it hired notorious London attack dog Mishcon de Reya, which tried to have the case struck out.
Ironically, Mishcon stopped representing Sparta after three months "on the basis of cost" – and even then, as Judge Truscott found, the lawyers "did not assert that the actual cost to [Sparta Global] of the claimant's training was £22,000" and "did not provide details or any corroborative documentation to support any actual costs expended on the claimant's training under the training contract".
The hefty penalty fee for departing trainees was unlawful, the judge found, because Sparta Global either didn't have any information about why the fee was so high or "disclosure of any such material would damage its case".
We asked Sparta Global if it wanted to explain itself, but in light of how it treated both Mr Ofonagoro and the Employment Tribunal we're not holding our breath. ®
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[1] https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/mr-n-ofonagoro-v-sparta-global-ltd-2305008-2019
[2] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: "top business and technology professionals"
Considering a degree costs more than that, and one may not be paid for 3 or 4 years. Perhaps this is cheap?
Theoretically an upside of completing a degree, is ... well, a degree.
Re: "top business and technology professionals"
No, the new standard is to fire anyone over 40,:outsource everything and then act shocked when you get hacked.
Re: "top business and technology professionals"
"It's been a while but is 3 months without pay and then a 2 year indentured servitude the new standard for those entering IT?"
It seems so for some companies. Go to YouTube and watch Joshua Fluke's channel, for example
https://youtu.be/xwYwOUZbGnE
And that's one of dozens of stories the young man will tell.
https://youtu.be/U8gxOcQ7Agg
Suddenly, all is clear
" 8. The claimant attended the SDET training course at the respondent’s ‘IT Academy’ from 14 May 2018 to 10 September 2018. All training was provided in-house by the respondent and none procured from any external supplier. The trainers did not have any specific level of qualification. The claimant’s allocated ‘coach’ had been coding for 18 months. Most of the training was self-learning.
9. [...] Plus, every job role or placement was different, requiring different things to learn. The onus was on the trainee to learn rather than be taught. "
Quite apart from the appalling abuse of personnel, there is another aspect, at least as important. A complete novice, casually 'trained' for four months by unqualified 'trainers', themselves almost novices, and placed on assignment as part of the 'training'. This explains a lot about the incidence of software project failure and the abysmal quality of much code.
Re: Suddenly, all is clear
Standard process for most big names in IT...
Re: Suddenly, all is clear
When I first started in IT, the company I worked for had an internal training division. There is nothing wrong with having a training division or an academy. But it needs to be a professional set-up and it need trained professionals running it.
Ours was so good that the training was actually also sold to clients.
Re: Suddenly, all is clear
Ours was so good that the training was actually also sold to clients.
The one from my first employer still exists, as an independent company after having been spun off 25 years ago; the company itself has disappeared into the greedy but utterly visionless maw of Eckhard Pfeiffer, whose company, one CEO later and in a rather delapidated state, was scooped up by the equally incompetent Carly Fiorina.
Mishcon de Reya
Ah. Lovely people. The one's issuing letters to Daphne Caruana Galizia, before she was assassinated, to try and silence her through the UK's mercenary libel courts?
Re: Mishcon de Reya
As MdR state on their radio commercials, "It's business, but it's personal".
Always felt that tagline sounded awkward. The last words from an assassin, moments before you are hit.
Re: Mishcon de Reya
Also after she was dead.
I'd have thought that the three months unpaid work at the start of the contract would be against the minimum wage law.
I hope El Reg are getting in touch with Women in Tech to find out how much Sparta paid for their "award"
Most likely paid in adverts taken out, or the director of one is also the director of the pointless "publication".
"I hope El Reg are getting in touch with Women in Tech"
I second that request. Pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top?
It'd certainly be interesting to follow the chain and see how much actual substance lies behind some of these awards, and the organizations that dish them out.
As a woman in tech myself...
...I would add my voice. I've learned to be suspicious of all awards over the years, but this one seems egregiously unconnected with reality.
I've always wondered how these companies win "Best Employer" awards. I worked for one that won the prize but employment there was a pretty miserable experience. Matthew & Son.
The work's never done, there's always something new.
.and a 5-minute break if you are lucky
.and a 5-minute break if you are lucky
Many of these industry awards are simply something you pay for. One of our clients' were really proud of themselves for winning a small business award. You don't get told if you've won until after you've paid a minimum of £2k to turn up to the awardsd dinner. Companies that don't pay, don't win. And that's after sometimes having to pay for "certification". Staff got a jolly at a prestigious hotel in London - so I guess everyone's a winner.
Dave Gorman did a piece on awards in one of the episodes of 'Modern Life is Goodish' as well. That's things like when some cleaning product advertises itself as "product of the year" - and then it turns out that other products in the same industry are doing the same. I guess it's like the profusion of championship belts in Boxing. 20 years ago you were undisputed heavyweight champion of the world if you held three - now there are about ten.
I get the feeling a lot of awards are like this. My first full realisation of this was when Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham won the RIBA Stirling prize architecture award in 2001 ahead of the Eden project in Cornwall.
I was working at Magna at the time and while the building was visually spectacular (the Eden project was just as spectacular) it completely failed as a workable building on so many other levels that most of us couldn't even believe it was shortlisted. It was horribly energy-inefficient, the "visitor flow" was poor (people kept getting lost), the building systems simply didn't work half the time (I've previously recounted horror stories about the drains) and while the fit-out didn't really count towards the prize there were stupidly foreseeable problems with the building, such as the main lifts which failed every time a neighbouring steelworks powered up and put a spike on the mains, or the pair of smoke sensors placed "downwind" of the "Big Melt" show, which meant that in certain weather conditions the alarm system would enter "first knock" every time the show ran, and if you weren't quick enough, or were unlucky enough, the second sensor would force a section evacuation.
If you are going to offer a prize for architecture it needs to do more than send a panel of judges on a dunner jolly and a 90 minute guided tour. It needs to investigate the whole thing, not just the headlines.
Once you realise that most industry prizes are awarded in the same way - i.e. on a superficial inspection only - everything begins to fall into place. Where did the judges get the best dinner?
M.
Here's a Cat video
Sceptic, my present to you (on my birthday): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nEpGyZUE-w
My dormant company with £7 in the bank "won" one of these awards. I just had to pay something like £5,000 for an awards ceremony to receive it.
My time at the Sparta Academy may have even overprepared me!
3 months of "read this book". Yeah, you're now a fricking expert.
This is why I despair at the existence of charlatans like these, as they end up getting contracts from their friends and doing well, whilst dragging down the rest of the industry with them as they show apparent success with appallingly low quality work,
[1]The government webpage with details on this company is here
[1] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05597367/officers
The "Best employer" is the one you yourself want to work with. Awards are meaningless.
Choosing an employer and being happy there is a personal choice.
Sorry to hear about this person's story and I hope their fortunes take a good turn soon.
This is Sparta!
Somebody had to do it ^^
"They offer free tech training and are constantly running initiatives to address the gender balance."
That's true! As Mr. Ofonagoro can testify, they treat male workers badly too.
I'm sure these Best awards are paid for
Over the years I've worked for some decent companies but also some that were truly terrible employers. It always surprised/worried me that the latter always seemed to win awards for being 'Best Employer' or 'Top Employer' - so much so I was always certain that these were paid for.
Anonymous for obvious reasons as I'm not yet retired.
Re: I'm sure these Best awards are paid for
Have an upvote. I've worked for a company like that, it seems they work harder at getting the (bought) rankings than at actually doing the right thing.
Re: I'm sure these Best awards are paid for
It's like advertising. In a lot of cases you do research into how the market sees your product, and you then tailor your adverts to change negative perceptions. Or if that's not possible, at least to distract from them.
Hence the oil companies doing all these adverts with young engineers doing green stuff. Or the big banks pumping out all those post 2007 ads about how they believe in helping their customers and fairness. Heaven forfend they actually stop mis-selling or price-gouging - or even bother to apologise for when they've been caught doing it in the very recent past.
So even a company that doesn't have a deliberate policy of being horribe to its staff, might still go the route of paying for some certificates to say how cuddly they are. Because it's very expensive and difficult to change your company culture and very easy to bung some awards body a few grand to say you're great.
Re: I'm sure these Best awards are paid for
> It's like advertising
It is not like advertising. It is advertising.
And yes, of course it is paid. How do you think those award companies make money (even though they call themselves fancy names, they're usually a simple Ltd)?
The only time when it is not paid is when you just give yourself an award, which also happens a lot.
Re: I'm sure these Best awards are paid for
Yes the plethora of meaningless industry awards have only really caught on because the organisers see it as easy cash, and the companies themselves see it as cheap marketing - rather than any of them really being worthy of an industry award. The process goes that you are invited, you pay your attendance / table fee, and only then do you get onto the nominations shortlist in terms of the promotional confetti and stuff like that.
I know this as an ex of mine worked (for a very short time I might add) for a web startup that produced a really shonky web enabled corporate expenses solution which was basically an online calculator with a few drop downs and such like i.e. something I'd suppose that any decent HTML expert could write or code in a day or so; anyway, all of a sudden they were nominated for some meaningless award by some meaningless "awards organisation" which was actually ludicrous if you had actually seen or had the misfortune to use the product itself. And yes, it turns out that the guy who ran the company had paid a few thousand to attend and then "be nominated" (in that order).
Anyway, they didn't win anything (unsurprisingly) and were out of business less than a year later which was great as the guy that ran it was a total prick.
Re: I'm sure these Best awards are paid for
It's also my experience that there is a strong correlation between being a ghastly place to work and having one of these awards. I expect getting one is often an HR or recruiting initiated exercise in response to the difficulty of hiring into such places once word gets out.
Spartan indeed
Treat the employees like helots.
Re: Spartan indeed
Hopefully with a bit less spying and murder though...
Scumbags
Hopefully now this incident has come to light, more people will be seriously questioning having anything to do with Sparta Global
Not only paid
I work for a company that consistently wins awards in the Bay Area and expects all global employees to vote for it in the poll.
How is this not fraud?
The article mentions "free training" twice yet the man claimed they charge twenty-two-thousand for said training. How is that not fraud/false advertising?
I used to work for a communications company that made us take Nortel training courses. Not only was the training free, the company picked up the tab for the flights to get there, the hotel we stayed in while there, & three meals a day our entire three month stay. The employees didn't pay a penny for any of it (souveniers were our own problem) so how can this company get away with charging 22K Pounds for in-house, unprofessional, substandard "training" that wouldn't be worth mentioning on a CV lest it get you rejected as worthless?
A couple of years ago we had a number of these “Spartans” interview as candidates for junior positions at the company I work for.
The cookie cutter nature of the CVs, the obvious “Boot Camp” nature of the training, the obviously heavily coached responses to interview questions (hell, they even dressed pretty much the same, regardless of gender...) and discomfort when you tried to get them to go “off piste” from their canned responses, the generally creepy vibe about the whole enterprise, and the dubious nature of the contract terms gave me the raging heebie jeebies and I gave all the candidates a firm and unequivocal thumbs down with a recommendation that we should have nothing further to do with Sparta Global.
Nothing I have heard since has made me remotely regret that decision. At the time I felt that the whole operation bordered on exploitative of young, inexperienced people, it seems my only mistake was in my assessment of which side of that border they were on...
Restriction of Trade
A leading IT contractor threatened me with a £10k fine if I ever left them and worked for one of their clients, as was stated in their contract. My lawyer brother in law laughed and said, "Restriction of trade, it'd be thrown out of any court".
"top business and technology professionals"
"Cheapest business and technology disposable employees" FTFY.
It's been a while but is 3 months without pay and then a 2 year indentured servitude the new standard for those entering IT? That would pushed me off to a different field!