Unfair Dismissal

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There are only 7 ways you can be fairly dismissed from your employment:

Redundancy
Misconduct
Poor performance
Illness or injury leading to high levels of absence • a lack of qualifications
A lack of qualifications
Where continued employment would break the law (for example, on expiry of a work permit)
For “some other substantial reason” (SOSR) under employment rights legislation.

Employees with 2 or more years’ service that have been unfairly dismissed are entitled to bring an unfair dismissal claim in the employment tribunals and claim damages for a statutory amount and loss of earnings.

Fair Dismissal

In order to dismiss someone fairly, in addition to an employer demonstrating that one of the 7 reasons exist to dismiss an employee, they also need to show that the decision was reasonable and that a fair procedure was followed.

The three most common reason for dismissal are:

Redundancy dismissal

In a redundancy dismissal, in order for that dismissal to be fair there would need to be:

Misconduct dismissal

In a misconduct dismissal, the employer would typically need to show that:

it genuinely believed the misconduct had occurred based on a reasonable investigation;
it had a disciplinary policy which made it clear that the conduct amounted to misconduct or gross misconduct;
it followed the steps set out in its disciplinary policy, and
the decision to dismiss was consistent with its approach to any other employees who may also have been found guilty of similar misconduct.

Poor performance dismissal

In a poor performance dismissal, when assessing whether this was a fair reason for dismissal, an employment tribunal would consider:

if it was reasonable for your employer to decide that your performance was below the standard reasonably required for the job;
whether you had been given a reasonable opportunity to improve after it was brought to your attention;
if your employer had a capability procedure, then had it been properly followed?

Some dismissals are considered in law to be automatically unfair. For example, if someone is dismissed because they were pregnant or had made a protected disclosure (“whistleblowing“).

If this applies to you and you would like advice, We offer a free consultation for clients who have been employed for over 2 years with a comfortable salary. Contact us for same-day consultation tailored to your circumstances.