DISMISSING EMPLOYEES

16 August 2018

• employment law solicitors
• Employment law liverpool
• employment law
• Solicitors Liverpool
• employment tribunal
• employee dismissal
• employer
• employee
• unfair dismissals
• employment and HR liverpool
• unfair dismissal claim
• employee contract
• Acas code of practice
• disciplinary procedures
• grievance procedures
• dismissing employees
• terminate employee contract
• dismissal process

An employer should be vigilant when considering an employee dismissal, ensuring that they carry out an essential enquiry in to the matter at hand, before deciding on a dismissal, as this option should be the last resort.

Before considering a dismissal, an employer should try to resolve any issues on an informal basis, which could involve a private chat with the staff member in question, before deciding the next steps to take.

Employers must ensure that they have written rules regarding disciplinary procedures, and that all staff are aware of these rules and procedures.  

If an employer decides that the only option is to dismiss their employee, they must then terminate their employee contract. During this process employers should utilise a fair procedure when dismissing an employee.

Employers should follow the Acas Code of Practice for disciplinary and grievance procedures, in order to avoid unfair dismissal claims, as all employees have the right not to be unfairly dismissed. The Acas code is vital in the dismissal process, because if a case goes to the Employment Tribunal, the code is always an important factor.

Please see details of the Acas code here:

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2179

Employers should be aware that as of April 2012, employees must have two years of continuous service in under to bring about an unfair dismissal claim, although it is important to remember that there is no length of service requirement for “automatically unfair grounds”.