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Employment Appeals
All employers should have in place proper procedures for dealing with disciplinary action and for handling staff grievances. Not only must they have a procedure, they must also follow it.
This would normally involve providing sufficient written details of any alleged misconduct or poor performance to allow the employee to know what is being complained of and to allow for any explanation to be put forward.
The employer will ask the employee to a meeting to discuss the issues. The employee can bring a colleague or representative to the meeting. The employer cannot normally take any action without hearing what the employee has to say at this meeting, although the employee may be suspended during the investigation. Suspension is normally a “neutral” act, to preserve the current position, and the terms of suspension will depend on the employment contract.
After the meeting, the employer must inform the employee of the outcome, in writing. This could include a warning (verbal or written), a final warning, demotion or dismissal. An employee then has the right to appeal against disciplinary action.
The first appeal is normally an internal appeal to a manager or committee not previously involved in the disciplinary process. The employee can be represented at the appeal.
If the employee has worked for the employer for over a year (or in certain other
special cases), the employee has a further right of appeal to an Employment Tribunal.
These are located in most major cities. There are strict time limits for tribunal
claims (usually “within three months”) and the correct forms and procedure must be
followed. The progress of cases is supervised by a tribunal judge and cases are
normally decided by a panel of three independent members (including one legally-
Employment Tribunals also deal with complaints about other employment rights such as redundancy, equal pay, discrimination and breach of contract. While many employers and employees are not represented at tribunal hearings, legal representation is quite common. Unless a party has behaved unreasonably, the losing party is not usually required to pay the other side’s costs.
Employment Appeal factsheet COMING SOON