Dismissal

[hugnasd]

Aibu to dismiss a member of staff who has worked with us for under a year who has openly admitted she hates the role she was employed for and refuses to do tasks we ask.

I've been looking at lots of gov and HR websites and just can't make head nor tail of what I can legally do.

I am a very small business owner and this person is really disrupting the culture with their negativity and vibe and need them out.

Does anyone know if I can just have an open and honest chat with them and say 'look this is just not working out, I'll pay you for a month plus unused holidays and we'll finish it now'?

I just don't want to do anything wrong in the eyes of the law. Can anyone help?

Yes get rid, I've had to do this a few times when people haven't been the right fit for our small team. Any notice pay and unused holiday should be paid, then p45

It probably doesn't matter now because legally this person doesn't have a leg to stand on, but personally I'd have put them a performance improvement plan early on. Measurable objectives, training/mentoring required, regular review dates, and then I'd have applied the '3 step' process in which you clearly set out the reasons for the dismissal, the attempts made to improve the performance and any training provided, and how the failure to improve has manifested.

Would have given them a week's notice, but built an appeal in. IMO that's best practice.

i would suggest performance reviews at least every 3 months with specific goals and targets with indicated timeframes in which they need to be achieved. You also need to implement the oral, first written warning, 2nd written warning, final warning, termination process. Sacking someone out of the blue regardless of her attitude or how long she has been there is very unprofessional and really crappy behaviour from a company. Legally you can terminate her immediately but does not make it right.

OP, pls don’t listen to this. You have more than enough reason to terminate this individual. My spider sense tells me that if you thought she was mentorable in any way, you would do this instead.

You have no obligation and you are being very fair.

I'd do another review asap and say things havnt improved from last review

We terminated an employee on Friday for similar reasons OP. We had a performance review at 13 weeks where we raised concerns with their performance and attitude, they were put on extended probation. The nail in their coffin was last Tuesday when the Christmas rota came out and they were very vocal on refusing to work Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. We found out on Thursday various staff had received unacceptable emails demanding that the other staff covered the very short hours that they were on rota for both days.

Your employee doesn’t like the job, they’ve made that clear, get rid of them especially if it’s impacting your team.

For future reference, lots of us are self employed freelance HR Consultants and our clients are people like you. There will be one near you.