Ask the Expert: I've been sacked for no good reason
A. In all probability, there is nothing you can do legally. The period of 10.5 months is unlikely to be a coincidence. If your employer knows what's what, you are on one month's notice or less, so that even after serving your notice, you will not have the required year's service to claim unfair dismissal. What they are doing may be immoral and unfair - but it isn't illegal.
Under UK employment law, employees have very few rights until they complete a year's service. Before that, they can be dismissed without reason, as long as they are given their contractual notice and it is not a case of discrimination. The right not to be discriminated against on ground of sex, race, disability etc. applies to everyone regardless of length of service, as do health and safety provisions - but from what you have said, you are not claiming any kind of discrimination.
The length and nature of your notice period is worth looking at carefully. You are entitled to receive whatever notice is stipulated in your contract and if your employer is not offering you this, then you can claim wrongful dismissal.
To be honest, though, the HR department has probably done their homework and there is little you can do except accept the situation with as much good grace as possible and try to get a decent reference.
David Higgo with executive search consultant MRI Worldwide advises...
In my work as a headhunter I've come across a number of cases like this. Unfortunately, my understanding is that until you have one year's service you do not have the right to take your employer to a tribunal. This means that they can effectively get away with dismissing you on a whim.
After a year, the boot is very much on the other foot and they would have to be very careful and lay a good paper trail if they wanted to dismiss you without risking a case they would almost certainly lose. I suppose the thinking is that it would be unreasonable to burden the employer with a legally bullet-proof employee until they've had time to make sure you're the man or woman for the job.
The moral of the story seems to be, don't start to feel secure in a position until you've been there at least a year. In fact it would have been two years until you would have had any statutory right to redundancy pay!
Next week's question: I have been a macro prop trader since 1995, for the US subsidiary of a Kuwaiti company (basically a hedge fund). I have never produced less than $2.5 million on a book size of $75-125 million in any month. My fund closed recently and I want to go to London to work as a prop trader. At the old fund I had carte blanche to trade anything that would make money. Today everything seems specialized by product, which I do not understand since I am from another breed. Do you think I can be hired by a big house given these circumstances? My target is to have prop trading capabilities of $125 million, only reporting to a senior director. I just want to trade and make money like I am used to, earning 125-150,000 base with 6-10% of net attributable profits as bonus?
What would you advise? Send your answer to: expertadmin@efinancialcareers.com.
Look out for the Experts' answer to this dilemma and readers' comments on Ask the Expert next week.
If you would like to submit a question to our panel of experts,
