Just a quick reminder in this bulletin.
Effectively, the qualification period for unfair dismissal claims has now dropped from two years down to six months for all new employees who started a job on or after 1st July. Therefore, this means your opportunity to address underperformance for new hires is going to be significantly reducing.
So, what should you be doing now to prepare?
- Probationary periods in employment contracts for new hires should be capped at five months maximum.
- Line managers should certainly be flagging and logging performance issues well before the six month mark.
- Keeping good written records of conversations and meetings etc is going to be even more important than before (because employees dismissed at or after six months will be acquiring a new right to receive written reasons).
We hope this helps guide you – we can help if you have any live performance or capability issues that you are struggling to deal with.