What would you as a supervisor do to avoid someone accusing you of wrongful dismissal
All Employers are required by law, as a minimum, to outline their disciplinary rules and procedures in an employees written statement of terms and conditions. The written statement can refer staff onto the Employers full, written Disciplinary Policy which Employers (of any size) are advised to have, and which they should let employees have access to.
Employers do not have to follow a statutory disciplinary procedure any more but the 2009 ACAS code of practice on discipinary and grievance procedures sets out the basic principles that should be followed – see below. (However, in Northern Ireland the statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedures has not been repealed and therefore still needs to be followed and the ACAS code of practice does not apply – the NI Labour Relations Agency has an equivalent code of practice that has been effective from 3rd April 2011).
Your Employer may have their own written Policy and this may be contractual (i.e. forms part of your contract) or not.
If your Employer has a contractual disciplinary policy but does not follow this your Employer will be in breach of contract. If you are dismissed without your Employer following a contractual disciplinary policy you can bring a claim for breach of contract in a County Court or High Court, or wrongful dismissal (i.e. dismissal in breach of contract – regarding the notice period and loss of salary over the period in which the disciplinary procedure should have been followed) and unfair dismissal in an Employment Tribunal. If you are dismissed before you have 1 years continuous service (or 2 years for employment starting from 6th April 2012) then you do not have a right to claim unfair dismissal but you may have the right to claim breach of contract if the situation above applies to you. For more details on unfair dismissal see our article here on ‘how your employment can come to an end‘.