An ex-ANZ employee who claimed he was forced to resign over a refused work-from-home plan was actually aggrieved he missed out on a potential redundancy payout by only a few weeks, a tribunal has found.
Former technology manager Harikumar Balasubramanian filed an unfair dismissal claim with the Fair Work Commission claiming his employer of 20 years pressured him to quit in 2025.
ANZ denied the claims and contended Mr Balasubramanian tendered his resignation of his own accord last July, with the tribunal told he had already received a “firm job offer”.
Mr Balasubramanian’s case hinged on a request for more work-from-home days in order, he claimed, to perform the school drop-off and pick-up duties for his two children.
Under ANZ policy in 2024 and 2025, staff were required to be in the office for 50 per cent of the working week unless an approved “exception” was in place.
The Melbourne-based tech staffer made a formal request for different working arrangements in December 2024, which the employee relations team approved.
He was granted 30 per cent office attendance for six months until July 2025, after which he was required to revert to 50 per cent office work.
Mr Balasubramanian claimed a request to extend the arrangement for another six months was “straight away rejected” without “any written reason or business justification”.
The workplace tribunal’s Deputy President Andrew Bell found in a judgment published this week that Mr Balasubramanian was not “a witness of credit” as he dismissed the case.
“I am unable to accept his evidence about a number of significant contested factual matters,” Mr Bell wrote.
“His evidence was marked by inconsistencies, both internal and with the contemporaneous documents, and much of it was simply improbable when tested against facts that were not in dispute or could be established from the documentary evidence.”
Mr Bell noted in his judgment that Mr Balasubramanian had been in contact with a recruiter in May before undergoing a job interview with another company that month.
“That leads to the inference that, by May 2025, Mr Balasubramanian was at least considering leaving his employment with ANZ,” Mr Bell wrote.
He later received a “firm job offer” of $950 a day with tech company Luxoft on July 10, the tribunal heard, which Mr Bell found came as “no surprise” to Mr Balasubramanian.
Mr Bell’s judgment states Mr Balasubramanian requested a call with his manager Vijayakumar Bidari, whose version of events was that he was told of the offer.
“Mr Bidari’s version of events is that Mr Balasubramanian seemed happy and told him that he wanted to leave ANZ because he had received a good offer from another bank,” he wrote.
“Mr Bidari asked whether there was anything ANZ could do to retain him, but Mr Balasubramanian replied that he had already made up his mind and wanted to move on.”
Mr Balasubramanian’s version was that he told his boss about the potential of him resigning because he felt unsupported after his flexible work request was denied.
“I was under emotional stress and unsure how to balance my work and family responsibilities,” he said in a statement to the tribunal.
“The refusal of my flexible working arrangement request on June 23 really upset me.
“I felt stuck and emotionally drained because without that arrangement I couldn’t manage
my family responsibilities.”
He said during his evidence before the tribunal that his boss had asked “can I get offer as well?” but Mr Bell did not accept this claim.
“The allegation that Mr Bidari pressured his resignation forms part of Mr Balasubramanian’s pattern of seeking in his evidence to portray his resignation as somehow given unwillingly by him,” he wrote.
“As I have found, Mr Balasubramanian had in fact already decided to resign because he intended to accept the job offer from Luxoft.”
He submitted his resignation on July 14, 2025 to ANZ and signed a contract with Luxoft two days later, the tribunal heard.
Mr Balasubramanian also “began raising the issue of being paid a redundancy package” on July 14 and on August 1 emailed a HR staffer offering to withdraw his resignation so he could be considered in an upcoming round of job cuts.
“I’m reaching out to seek clarification regarding the recent redundancies taking place
within the company,” he wrote in the email.
“I submitted my resignation on 14 July, with my final working day set for 8 August. Since I am still currently employed and the redundancies are occurring during this period, I wanted to check whether I can be eligible for a redundancy, given the timing.
“I am happy to withdraw my resignation and extend my last working day if that helps.”
A senior HR staffer responded on August 6 to inform him it was “unfortunate timing” and the company was “not in a position to amend your reason for exit”.
He replied again to ask he be considered for redundancy, but the staffer told him his resignation “will need to be held”.
Mr Bell noted in his judgment that Mr Balasubramanian’s emails sent about the redundancy made no mention of his claims of being forced to resign.
The tribunal member dismissed the case, finding Mr Balasubramanian’s decision to leave ANZ was “entirely voluntary”.
“Mr Balasubramanian’s real grievance is that the timing of his resignation meant that he may have missed the opportunity to depart from ANZ with the windfall of a redundancy package before taking up his new job with Luxoft.”