GUEST COMMENT: You may soon become more sackable in the first two years of service
If you're thinking of changing jobs, be warned. The coalition government is considering increasing the qualifying period of service that employees need to have before they can raise an unfair dismissal claim from 1 year to 2 years' service.
If the government decides to go ahead, this change could happen very quickly. It wouldn't require an Act of Parliament, just an order from the Employment Minister.
As an employee with less than two years' service, what would the change mean for you?
The danger is that your new employer could treat you badly. If an employee is eligible to claim unfair dismissal, any employer wanting to dismiss them will need to follow a lengthy and fair process. If it does not follow this process, the employee can bring a case to a tribunal and win up to 65,300 in compensation.
As part of this process, the bank will need to prove that there was one of the limited "fair" reasons for dismissal. However, when unfair dismissal claims are not an option, the bank could circumvent or simply avoid this altogether. At worst, an employee could be dismissed for no real reason.
Without the ultimate threat of seeking redress in a tribunal, an employee will have little or no leverage against his employer.
It will, however, still be possible for employees with less than 2 years' experience to raise claims for discrimination and a few other limited claims such as whistleblowing and breach of statutory rights.
Nevertheless, the danger is that if these changes go ahead, recently hired employees will be extremely vulnerable to being dismissed unfairly. This could create a stressful working environment in which employees with less than two years' service are constantly under pressure to attain a certain standard or face dismissal.
Finally, you should always bear in mind that the present 1 year qualifying period of service is slightly misleading. In most cases, due to the operation of the minimum statutory notice period of 1 week, an employee only needs 51 weeks' service to qualify for issuing an unfair dismissal claim.
Whilst larger banks will be aware of this, it is amazing how many employers of smaller or less well known financial institutions are not, and leave it until the last day before the complete calendar year to dismiss an employee who they believe will be unable to then make a claim. They are wrong.
