One Unfair Dismissal Claim Can Cost More Than You Think
Most business owners know they can't dismiss someone for the wrong reasons.
What catches many employers off guard is that even when they have a legitimate reason to let someone go, they can still find themselves facing an unfair dismissal claim.
We've seen it happen time and time again. An employee's performance isn't up to standard, but the documentation doesn't reflect it. Or a business tries to take a shortcut, only to create a much bigger problem later.
The good news? These situations are often avoidable if you know what to do before difficult conversations become dismissal decisions.
In this short video, I explain some of the most common mistakes employers make, and how to protect your business from unnecessary claims
If you employ staff, this is a worthwhile 2-minute investment.
Working with you,
Ross Millen & The Millens Team
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Ross Millen:
Hi. What we've seen some people, I know they find this very difficult, is when you have a staff member or an employee who's really not performing. What I want to draw to your attention today is some things that people get wrong and they really expose themselves to claims that are unnecessary.
Now, the first thing is that when someone's dismissed, they could bring an action for unlawful dismissal. Now, this is clearly where, because of their age, or their gender, or ethnicity, or because they belong to a union, all those things are pretty clear and we certainly don't want anyone having any unlawful dismissals. But the problem area is unfair dismissal because that introduces this concept of fairness. So people who, very highly paid employees are outside this and it's about $180,000 a year. So below that people can say they've been unfairly dismissed and this is if it was harsh or unfair.
What we see the problem here is, and there's a couple of problems. The first is a person may have all of their reviews say that they're performing satisfactorily. This is because their line manager really doesn't want to engage with the fact that they're not really performing. So we strongly encourage you that if someone is not performing, you need to let them know early on, you need to have a performance improvement plan. You work to that plan, you measure it, and either their performance improves, which is great, or it doesn't improve and then you're in a position where their dismissal is not going to be unfair.
Another problem we see is where people try to dress up a dismissal as a redundancy or a retrenchment, but they just want to get rid of the person. They still want to employ someone new and that doesn't work. So remember, if you've got some issues with employees, we can assist you. We can make sure that you don't expose your business to unnecessary claims of unfair dismissal. So remember, I'm Ross Millen leading the team at Millens and we're here to help you.