What’s the rules on letting someone go

wendb69 wrote: »

Her contract says we only pay stat sick pay. She’s on a weeks notice with 3 month prob. But my question is how do we tackle the issue - do we wait the 2 week period and see how it goes or do we say it’s not quite working out. She’s been with us for like 6 weeks, but how do we deal with the fact she’s ill this early on. We don’t know the rules. She said in her interview her old job made her feel very anxious because “of all the changes” that’s why she wanted a different post.

Very simple, you give her a week's notice (or pay in lieu) plus pay her for any accrued but untaken holiday (roughly 1 day for every two weeks work). You do not have to give a reason. She cannot claim unfair dismissal with less than two years service unless she could claim unlawful discrimination (e.g race, gender, religion etc) which seems unlikely.

But my question is how do we tackle the issue - do we wait the 2 week period and see how it goes or do we say it’s not quite working out.

It's up to you really. But personally, I'd be giving notice and payment in lieu. Tell her in person, just outline that you are giving her notice because the amount of sick leave so far is unsustainable for the business. Then good practice is to follow up in writing (letter or email both fine) to restate what was said.

She said in her interview her old job made her feel very anxious because “of all the changes” that’s why she wanted a different post.

You should also probably learn from this in your recruitment :-) . Honestly if anyone ever says in an interview that their last job was stressful, difficult, demanding etc I just cut the interview off sharpish!

I find it quite worrying that an employer doesn't know basic employment law.

You are worried that one small employer in the UK does not know HR law inside out? Well, you have a serious amount of worrying to do then, because the majority of small employers (and some large ones actually) probably don't even think to ask.

You may want to consider hiring a HR consultant on an as needed basis.
Might help generally and not cost a lot.

For this case I would just issue notice in writing.

From what you have said it is likely this should be on full pay.
Many don't know about the rule and if off sick you might get away with SSP.

Work out the holiday pay and put that into the calculation, NOTE if they have had more paid holiday than accrued you need a clause in the contract to recover that from the final pay.


Hone your recruitment skills.

Also a bit concerning you have 2/3rds of the people in this role as new starters.
how has that come about what steps are you taking to manage it going forward, holiday and sick are high risk if you need more than 1 at any time.

Small office and 3 admin, how much admin can there be?