Terminated during probation for no reason

TELLIT01

The person has been employed for 5 months so would need to explain the gap in employment if they didn't put the job down on the CV.

steampowered

This may well just be cost cutting.

Unfortunately people who have less 2 years' service are often the first to be cut, because the employer does not have to follow a redundancy procedure or pay redundancy pay to dismiss those people.

The only caveat is that your husband's employer is required to give at least 1 week's notice of dismissal (or longer if provided for in his employment contract).

This does sound like it has been very badly handled though. Any half decent manager would tell him the reason why he is being dismissed.

Unless your husband has been told not to come into work, he should show up and ask his manager about it.

Wowiee

It was a verbal termination but he was given a probation letter (one page) which has boxes to be filled with performance issues but they were all blank and at the bottom it just said fail. He spoke to he hr director today who didn’t even know this has happened as it was just the area manager who gave the order to terminate him for no reason. The person who told him just said she thinks it is because his face does not fit. The hr person just told him not to come in tho and has confirmed now over the phone he has been terminated but he doesn’t know why either. They have breached their own notice period of 1 week.

Thank you for all the replies. He is just moving on with the job hunt now.

robatwork

I just want to clarify something.
This company initially wanted your partner, and paid him to work there.

There won't be "no reason" they have let him go. They don't have to give you a reason, but there is a good reason. The fact they are looking to re-employ for this post does suggest there is a problem with your partner, even if it's just a personality clash.

Masomnia

Wowiee wrote: »

It was a verbal termination but he was given a probation letter (one page) which has boxes to be filled with performance issues but they were all blank and at the bottom it just said fail. He spoke to he hr director today who didn’t even know this has happened as it was just the area manager who gave the order to terminate him for no reason. The person who told him just said she thinks it is because his face does not fit. The hr person just told him not to come in tho and has confirmed now over the phone he has been terminated but he doesn’t know why either. They have breached their own notice period of 1 week.

Thank you for all the replies. He is just moving on with the job hunt now.

Make sure they pay him for the week plus any accrued annual leave he hasn't taken.

If he has anything in writing regarding the paternity leave I suppose he could try and throw that in for some extra money but I agree with Undervalued it's always difficult to prove stuff like that and sometimes it's best just to move on. Probation terminations happen pretty frequently so I'm sure he'll find something soon.

Doshwaster

Liberal123 wrote: »

I know of someone who maybe in a similar situation. Just out of curiosity, how would this situation be tackled in terms of references? Would you request a reference? Would you even put the job down on your CV?

I would still put the job on the CV

The shortest I've lasted in a job was 2 months after which I left "by mutual consent" as it was clear that things weren't right. The job wasn't what I had been led to expect and I wasn't the sort of person that they had been looking for.

Any experienced hiring manager will know that not every new hire works out for a multitude of reasons. As long as you don't have a lot of short term jobs on your CV a single one shouldn't cause any problems.

Crazy_Jamie

Wowiee wrote: »

It was a verbal termination but he was given a probation letter (one page) which has boxes to be filled with performance issues but they were all blank and at the bottom it just said fail. He spoke to he hr director today who didn’t even know this has happened as it was just the area manager who gave the order to terminate him for no reason. The person who told him just said she thinks it is because his face does not fit. The hr person just told him not to come in tho and has confirmed now over the phone he has been terminated but he doesn’t know why either. They have breached their own notice period of 1 week.

Thank you for all the replies. He is just moving on with the job hunt now.

They may have, but the only money that will be owed in relation to that is that one week's pay, which you should ensure he recovers as has already been said.

Just very briefly as regards rights and such, because I know you've got this point, but the fundamental difference is between contractual rights and statutory rights. Under a contract you only need to do what the contract says, which normally is giving the required period of notice. You normally don't need a specific reason. If you don't adhere to the notice period, you must pay the employee for the period of notice but usually don't have any further liability.

The reason comes into it with unfair dismissal, which is a statutory right (i.e. it comes from the Employment Rights Act 1996, not the contract that has been signed with the employer). Unfortunately, you need two years service before you have the right to not be unfairly dismissed. Subject to the limited circumstances in which you can be automatically unfairly dismissed, you therefore don't have many options if you're dismissed within the two years, and the reason is irrelevant.

I only mention that because you said there's nothing in the contract that says he can be dismissed with no reason. The whole point is that a reason is only required under statute, not the contract, so you would not normally expect to see something of that nature in the contract. Probably something of a superfluous point for the purposes of a forum like this (where people rightly aren't interested in technical legal detail unless they really need it), but there you have it.

KatrinaWaves

Did he even qualify for paternity leave if he was only there for 5 months total? I know he certainly wouldn’t have been paid but I can’t see that he qualified for the leave either... I wouldn’t bring it up regardless though.