Major Change to UK Dismissal Law

Any employer who is wanting to dismiss employees in the UK needs to have an eye to the UK’s unfair dismissal laws. In the UK a dismissal can be unfair, even if carried out strictly in accordance with the employee’s contract of employment. Typically a dismissal will be judged unfair because the incorrect process was followed prior to termination. However in redundancy cases, dismissals may be judged to be unfair for multiple reasons, including insufficient consultation, improperly constituted redundancy selection pools, and/or the use of subjective selection criteria. Likewise poor performance dismissals may fall foul of the law, particularly if dismissal is regarded as too heavy a sanction, when some kind of warning would have been more appropriate.