The first thing to check is whether your staff member has 2 years of continuous employment with your organization. Generally, an individual needs to have 2 years of employment before they acquire unfair dismissal rights. There are some exceptions to the 2 year rule, for example : any dismissal on because the worker has blown the whistle (and is a whistleblower) or because of a protective characteristic (race, disability, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, age, religion or belief) are automatically unfair; in those cases, and some others, the individual does not need to have been employed for 2 years. Assuming that your member of staff has been employed for at least 2 years you will then need to consider your reason for wanting to terminate their contracts. There are only 5 fair reasons for dismissal, these are capability, conduct, redundancy, breach of statute and a final catch all of “some other substantial reason.”
If you can establish a potentially fair reason for dismissal, an Employment Tribunal will then go on to consider whether the dismissal was fair or unfair having regard to all of the circumstances of the case, including the size and administrative resources of your organisation.
There will be a particular scrutiny of the process you follow. It is important that in considering this, the Employment Tribunal should not substitute its own view for yours but it should instead decide whether your actions fall within the range of reasonable responses of a reasonable employer. This affords the Employment Tribunal a degree of flexibility.
If you are considering terminating the employment of one of your members of staff it is so important that you take legal advice before you do. It will be far cheaper and much less time consuming than getting it wrong and then having to deal with the fall out.
We are happy to have an initial chat with you (at no charge) to see if this is something we can help you with. We can give you a quote for the legal fees involved if you want us to advise you and provide you with all necessary letters throughout the process. If you are happy to proceed, we can take it from there. We will not charge any fees until you have formally instructed us.
