Lost Your Job? What To Do?
There are various reasons for the termination of your employment. It may be because of your capability, conduct or performance, qualification or redundancy. The main areas of concern are conduct, capability and redundancy.
Capability includes your physical ability to do your job. In some cases you may be affected by an illness. If it is a long lasting illness it may fall within the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act and you may have additional protection. A reasonable employer should investigate the situation first, and where possible make reasonable adjustments to your job to enable you to return to work.
Conduct is normally governed by a disciplinary code either in your contract or under a policy. In all cases except the most obvious, an employer should hold a meeting and discuss the issue before dismissal. An appeal must be offered and strict procedures must be followed.
Redundancy is governed by a fairly simple definition, although, its interpretation can cause many problems. Usually the fact that redundancy is necessary is not to difficult to prove. The main problem for employers is following the correct procedures. Some employers do not understand the selection criteria of the potentially redundant employees and many fail to use an objective criteria to choose those employees who are to be made redundant. If there are more than 20 employees made redundant over a ninety day period, additional rules must be followed which include a thirty day consultation before the first redundancy.
Whilst in most circumstances, an employee must have at least 12 months continuous employment to be able to bring a claim for unfair dismissal, there are exceptions. The other very important consideration is the statutory grievance procedures which must be followed as a pre requisite to bringing a claim against a former employer.
