Dismiss without fear

Published
12 Mar
2014
Hardly a week goes by without an email from a client seeking advice on steps to take to end an employment relationship that isn’t working out.  The reasons for the breakdown are as varied as the range of animals you’ll find in a zoo.  The approach to managing a dismissal, unfortunately, is not that varied. Managing a dismissal can be quite painless (but never without costs) or very tortuous depending on circumstances.
 
In this post we provide some tips on what should be a relatively pain-free example of dismissing an employee who is on probation. An employer shouldn’t have to lose sleep over dismissing a probationer, but they do. Fortunately, since April 2012, an employee has to clock up two years’ service before they can claim ordinary unfair dismissal. If you observe that an employee is not meeting your required standards, don’t let matters drift. Nip this in the bud by addressing the issue with the employee.
 
If you have an underperforming employee with under two years’ service, act like a sage and:
 
From month one of employment have 121 reviews on how it’s going
 
Document these discussions
 
Give feedback and highlight what’s going well and what could be even better
 
Decide whether there is scope for improvement; you don’t want to throw your investment away, so try to build on strengths by offering training, supervision and feedback.
 
If you see signs of improvement, that’s good; continue to build on this. 
 
If there are no signs of improvement, then decide to dismiss.
 
Give the reasons why it’s not working out (base your evidence on your observations; keep it cool, calm and measured
Honour notice pay
 
If you want to talk things through, we’ll be your shrink. Call us on 020 8150 9960.