How do you proceed if your employee doesn't pass their probation? What's the best way to handle a dismissal? Read this guide to find out the steps to follow.
Loading content...
How to Navigate Dismissal During Probation
FAQs
Got a question? Check whether we’ve already answered it for you…
HR management outsourcing is when a team of experts manage your HR by looking after your contracts, policies, and procedures.
These are the HR essentials every business needs. Without them, your staff could bring successful claims against you, you could lose thousands in legal fines, and even face prosecution. Never underestimate the benefits of HR support for a small business.
We have years of experience in providing HR for SMEs and HR management outsourcing. Contact us to see how we can support you, including HR advice for small businesses - as well as medium and large companies.
Good human resource management is having round the clock support when you need it the most.
Whenever there’s a staff challenge or an important legal update, you just pick up the phone and get the help you need – no matter the time or place.
The main benefits of HR outsourcing are:
- Cost saving: Reduces the expenses for such things are hiring, training and employing an in-house HR team.
- Time saving: Saves time for staff members away from HR tasks.
- Improves expertise and compliance: Provides ongoing advice and support to ensure complete and total compliance.
- Reduces risk: Reduces the risk of any payroll and compliance failures.
Outsourcing HR is cheaper than hiring internal staff and saves you money overall when it comes to your HR service. Plus, you avoid making mistakes that could cost you heavily in claims and legal fines down the line. Every business should consider HR support as a way to avoid claims.
Peninsula is one of the leading HR outsourcing services in the UK, and by working with us you get access to our HR advisory service. Contact us for your outsourced SME HR today.
The key functions of HR outsourcing services are:
- Payroll and benefits: Helps a business to manage employee wages, tax processing, and employee enrolment.
- Recruitment and onboarding: Helps with job descriptions, sourcing new candidates, interviewing, and ensuring a smooth onboarding process.
- Compliance with employment law: Helps to ensure compliance with ever-changing employment legislation.
- Employee relations: Helps to manage grievance and disciplinary procedures, and any ongoing support that's required.
- HR admin: Helps to handle and manage daily tasks, such as employee records, sorting employment contracts, and processing any leave requests.
- Training and development: Helps to create and deliver staff training programs to improve employees' skills.
Read about the legal requirements needed when dismissing workers on long-term sick leave. And discover alternative ways to help ill workers return to work before deciding on medical capability dismissal.
In this guide, we'll discuss what constructive dismissal is, actions that may lead to it, and how a tribunal could award your employees.
Peninsula GroupHR and Health & Safety Experts
Dismissal
Award-winning services
Take the first step towards a safer business. Answer a few questions about your HR and Health & Safety management and we’ll direct you to the support you need
0800 158 2313Speak to an expert 24/7
Jump to section:
It’s commonplace for employers to include a probationary period in their employees’ contracts. This provision gives you a few months—usually from three to six—to assess whether the employee is right for the job. From time to time an employee will fail to meet your expectations. If this happens, you could give them a warning or extend their probation.
But in some cases, you might feel like you have no choice but to dismiss them. If you’ve never had to dismiss anyone during their probation period before, you may be wondering how you should proceed.
Peninsula offers expert advice on all types of dismissal, contact us today and see how we can help you.
Yes. The statutory minimum notice period is one week, but only where service is a month or more. You can choose to give more if you want to, but you’ll need to specify the amount in your employees’ contracts of employment.
Explore free HR webcasts
Watch the leading HR and Health & Safety experts unpack your biggest workplace issues
To make a claim of unfair dismissal, your employee would need to have been working for you for at least two years. Because an employee is usually on probation for six months at most, a tribunal won’t consider their claim. However, there are other claims an employee could make that don’t have a qualifying period. These include:
Whistleblowing: This is when an employee claims you fired them because they exposed wrongdoing at the workplace.
Discrimination: They could claim you dismissed them because of their age, gender, race or other protected characteristic.
That you dismissed them because they reported health & safety failings.
If you let an employee go purely because of their poor performance or conduct, you shouldn’t run into any problems. But for the sake of consistency, you should still follow a set process. The first step you should take is to gather evidence of your employee’s poor performance. You’ll be able to use this in the probation review meeting to support your decision. Before you start the dismissal procedure, you should have informal meetings with your employee, during which you should explain your concerns. Don’t forget to keep a record of the dates and times of these meetings, and list what was said and what was agreed.
Probationary period dismissal procedure
You should follow the guidelines in your written procedure, which may include:
Write to your employee and invite them to a probation review meeting outlining concerns you have (although you don’t have to do this – you can ask them directly).
The employee can be accompanied by a colleague or accredited trade union representative, but it is their right to pursue
During the meeting, confirm that the employee received and understood the letter. Then, give them the opportunity to respond to the issues that you raised.
Make a decision on the outcome of the probationary period—in this case, the termination of your employee’s contract.
Give the employee another letter, this time confirming the decision and outlining when their last day will be.
Does a dismissed employee have a right to appeal?
Not by law, but it’s good practice to give your employee the right to lodge an appeal within five working days. It’s also good practice to allow for an appeal, as a dismissal will often be found unfair if there was no appeal.
Dismissal because of sickness absence
If a new employee is constantly taking time off sick during their probationary period, it’s understandable that you might want to dismiss them. But when a dismissal in the probationary period is due to sickness absence, you need to take extra precautions to make sure the dismissal is fair. If you dismiss an employee who’s receiving treatment for a disability, they could claim you’re discriminating against them. So long as you made reasonable adjustments for their disability—such as providing special equipment—a tribunal may see your decision as fair. Do remember, disability can be the reason for dismissal, provided you’ve exhausted all avenues of trying to help the employee in your workplace.
How Peninsula can help you with dismissals during probation
Peninsula offers expert advice on dismissals during the probationary period. Our teams provide 24/7 HR advice which is available 365 days a year. We take care of everything when you work with our HR experts. Peninsula also has a for you to download and use when needed.
Want to find out more? Contact us on 0800 028 2420 and book a free consultation with an HR consultant today.
Award-winning services
Take the first step towards a safer business. Answer a few questions about your HR and Health & Safety management and we’ll direct you to the support you need
Guide
Peninsula GroupHR and Health & Safety Experts
Guide
Guide