HR consultancy Hand & Heart has claimed that a representative from BrewDog is obtaining third-party information about affected workers from the platform it set up to handle feedback and complaints.
The company revealed that it has paused work on the website, due to BrewDog representatives behind the scenes who "contradicted the good faith" programme.
The platform is supposed to let current and former BrewDog employees share stories of alleged workplace misconduct with anonymity.
Kate Bailey, founder at Hand & Heart, wrote a post detailing engagement with the Ellon-based brewery since late February, when it was contacted by BrewDog representatives to create a reconciliation program - based on the work Bailey did with another beer company.
She explained that during the course of this contact she had three meetings and exchanged emails”
Bailey revealed that she was seeking feedback from platform participants about their contingencies, or items they wanted to have addressed before committing to a reconciliation program.
She shared these with BrewDog and was told to wait a minimum of two to four weeks, but due to “significant developments” decided to pause the discussions, claiming that “different representatives” from BrewDog had sought information as individuals.
In doing so, the action has contradicted the good faith discussions and the intentions the company expressed, that I have had with the company”.
Bailey explained that she asked the representative to clarify the action privately and made it clear that it could “jeopardise the position of the platform”, herself and the programme.
She wrote: “I expressed I felt I was in a very difficult position given these two totally different approaches to the same thing.”
A person can request details related to how their personal data is stored or shared by a company under the General Data Protection law. This could lead to the individual seeing names, contact information and stories shared, under the assumption they were kept secret on the platform created by Hand & Heart, if the filing was successful.
Bailey told the Goodbeerhunting website that the individual had “exercised a personal right to seek information from the platform.”
Hand & Heart said the request for information was issued on 25 March by an individual representative of BrewDog.
Bailey said that she would, where she could, block the BrewDog’s representative’s request to obtain access to the platform.
She added: “Myself and my company will be responding with the full extent of whatever legal recourse is available and I am working on establishing a cross-jurisdictional approach to do so.”
Bailey wasn’t able to say how many people were registered on the platform, but said it was “substantial”, adding that submissions “allege widespread toxic cultures especially related to misogyny and discrimination, poor and under-resourced management, managerial misconduct, retaliation and retribution, harassment, bullying, compliance, and breach of duty, and some allegation of [occupational health and safety] violations”.
Punks With Purpose, the group of former BrewDog employees who wrote an open letter to the company's founders last summer, launched the independent registration platform last month.
The anonymous information will be shared only with BrewDog, but "only when they are willing to engage in good faith".
In response to the original letter, BrewDog identified and implemented a series of measures in an attempt to address the issues raised.
However, these complaints and more were then the topic of a BBC documentary The Truth About BrewDog aired earlier this year.
BrewDog's co-founder and chief executive James Watt formally complained to media regulator Ofcom about the accusations made about him and the company, and has also filed a formal complaint direct to the BBC.
BrewDog has been contacted for comment on the latest developments.
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