Looking for the best strategy to dismiss an employee - Question for any HR/Employment law experts

Mellisa_D

We have an employee who is less than 2 years service.
There are several performance related issues with this Employee over the past several months so planning to hold a disciplinary hearing. Examples are around:
-Lack of attention to detail
-Keeping files up to date
-Payroll errors
-Failure to follow reasonable management instructions
- Accurate reporting
Etc.
There are around 30 supporting evidence documents to back this up.
The outcome we want is to dismiss her.
Ordinarily this would be a straight forward case. However she has recently applied for flexible working due to Childcare reasons which has been rejected by the Company.
There is also some indication that she may raise a grievance against her line manager who has raised the performance related issues.
I'm reaching out to this forum to get some HR advice on this as I believe that we have grounds to dismiss her however I would like to get some opinions.
My question to any HR experts is what would be the best strategy to dismiss her and what are the pros and cons based on the above?

Penguin_

I'm pretty sure you can dismiss any member of staff who's been with you less than 2 year without a reason, except those based on race, gender etc.

Andy_L

What penguin said. 
Tell her that her performance has been unsatisfactory and that you are dismissing her as of X date (where x is date + her notice entitlement). If you want to you could pay her in lieu of notice to get her off site straight away.

Seldonista

Well straight away, even though you've kept this anonymous, you've broken a bunch of good practice and probably some laws somewhere by posting this question in a public forum.
You've mentioned the timeline, the problems, length of service, her gender, personal and family details, mentioned evidence... You know you are obliged to disclose this evidence to her before moving to dismissal? You can't just sneak around behind an employee's back trying to catch them out and then skip to dismissal. Have you made any attempt to support her performance? Such problems seldom happen in a vacuum. If I was managing a line manager or HR professional who had done what you have done, they would be gone for gross misconduct.
Seek proper advice, hire a HR professional.

garmeg

Mellisa_D said:

We have an employee who is less than 2 years service.
There are several performance related issues with this Employee over the past several months so planning to hold a disciplinary hearing. Examples are around:
-Lack of attention to detail
-Keeping files up to date
-Payroll errors
-Failure to follow reasonable management instructions
- Accurate reporting
Etc.
There are around 30 supporting evidence documents to back this up.
The outcome we want is to dismiss her.
Ordinarily this would be a straight forward case. However she has recently applied for flexible working due to Childcare reasons which has been rejected by the Company.
There is also some indication that she may raise a grievance against her line manager who has raised the performance related issues.
I'm reaching out to this forum to get some HR advice on this as I believe that we have grounds to dismiss her however I would like to get some opinions.
My question to any HR experts is what would be the best strategy to dismiss her and what are the pros and cons based on the above?

If service is under 2 years you can dismiss regardless I think. Not sure if the flexible working request has any bearing as it is mostly women that apply for this (at a guess) so there may be a sex discrimination issue?

Dox

Mellisa_D said:

We have an employee who is less than 2 years service.

My question to any HR experts is what would be the best strategy to dismiss her and what are the pros and cons based on the above?

If you add in statutory (as opposed to contractual) notice, is this still under two years?

Best strategy? Get some proper professional advice rather than relying on a few snippets of information posted on a public forum. It could be a lot cheaper than  free 'advice'.

ssparks2003

Seldonista said:

Well straight away, even though you've kept this anonymous, you've broken a bunch of good practice and probably some laws somewhere by posting this question in a public forum.

Really? What law's? 

Andy_L

Seldonista said:

Well straight away, even though you've kept this anonymous, you've broken a bunch of good practice and probably some laws somewhere by posting this question in a public forum.
You've mentioned the timeline, the problems, length of service, her gender, personal and family details, mentioned evidence... You know you are obliged to disclose this evidence to her before moving to dismissal? You can't just sneak around behind an employee's back trying to catch them out and then skip to dismissal. Have you made any attempt to support her performance? Such problems seldom happen in a vacuum. If I was managing a line manager or HR professional who had done what you have done, they would be gone for gross misconduct.
Seek proper advice, hire a HR professional.

Not if they've got less than 2 years service.

KatrinaWaves

A crap employee can’t just hide behind sex discrimination because they asked for flexible hours for childcare.

if they are crap and you have evidence they’re crap then get rid. Children and a uterus aren’t a carte blanche to be useless and not get sacked . 

nicechap

Mellisa_D said:

We have an employee who is less than 2 years service.
There are several performance related issues with this Employee over the past several months so planning to hold a disciplinary hearing. Examples are around:
-Lack of attention to detail
-Keeping files up to date
-Payroll errors
-Failure to follow reasonable management instructions
- Accurate reporting
Etc.
There are around 30 supporting evidence documents to back this up.
The outcome we want is to dismiss her.
Ordinarily this would be a straight forward case. However she has recently applied for flexible working due to Childcare reasons which has been rejected by the Company.
There is also some indication that she may raise a grievance against her line manager who has raised the performance related issues.
I'm reaching out to this forum to get some HR advice on this as I believe that we have grounds to dismiss her however I would like to get some opinions.
My question to any HR experts is what would be the best strategy to dismiss her and what are the pros and cons based on the above?

Your best strategy would be to follow your organisation's policies to terminate the employment contract. You could ask your HR to explain the difference between managing poor performance (Which you should have been doing as soon as it was noticed) and disciplinary (which should also be tackled as soon as practical once an event is known about).

"Reaching" out to strangers on the internet, like several other new posters have recently, is not professional.

Edited to add: deciding on the result of a disciplinary (to dismiss) before the process has begun  is inherently unfair, Though there are circumstances where someone could be summarily dismissed to safeguard colleagues, assets etc.

Annisele

I agree with others that the most money saving thing you can do here is to get yourself some paid for advice. Almost certainly cheaper to do it now than later!

Just as food for thought - emphatically not as questions that I expect answers to - I wonder about things like:

• You say this employee has had performance issues "over the past several months" and that there are "childcare issues". Would these performance issues have started, say, in March 2020? And have the employee's normal childcare arrangements been disrupted? If 'yes' and 'yes', I'd wonder if the pandemic might be having an impact here. And dismissing anybody because the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on them does start to look as though it might be indirect sex discrimination.
• Did the employee's manager draw the performance issues to her attention before the flexible working request was refused? If not, a dismissal might look retaliatory.
• Was the employer acting lawfully and reasonably when it rejected the flexible working request? If not, and if the poor performance is in any way related to childcare, there are definite risks in a dismissal.
• Does the employee actually want to stay? If not, a COT3 "here's some money to go away" agreement might be a way forward.