I got fired today!!

[Amiunemployable]

I started a new job on 1st September.

I was given an offer of employment letter when I started but never received a contract.

Today I was fired. Apparently I've had too much time off and failed my probation.

They've said I've had eleven days off. By my tally it's six days. Not eleven. Two were caused by migraines with aura which I've never had before and my GP reckons it was highly likely to have been caused by my office lighting as the migraines only started after I got the job. And since i stopped using the overhead office lights, (i sourced my own alternative) I've been migraine free.

I know it's still a high amount to have had off but I recieved PIP for a disability that does unfortunately mean it's difficult for me sometimes to get to work. But I've done my best.

Have I got a leg to stand on here? I never received a contract. Was never informed of a probation period. To then be told I'd failed a probation period that I didn't know existed? I signed nothing that mentioned probation.

I wasn't offered an extension to the probation period or a improvement plan, etc. Just straight dismissal, with no prior warning, for failing a probation period I didn't know existed. And also told I've had 11 days off and I don't think it's been that many.

6 or 11 days off is excessive in such a short period of time. If you have difficulty with your disability you need to manage your time more effectively. I am disabled and work, it takes me three hours from waking up to leaving the house. I get up earlier than most so l am ready and on time. Do not use your disability as an excuse, you accepted the job

you are too late!? Why didn’t you ask for help/ speak to the union/ HR/ Acas before the meeting with your employer? Surely they hold a meeting, take notes you can present any new evidence without just firing you

You say in your OP "...recieved PIP for a disability that does unfortunately mean it's difficult for me sometimes to get to work. But I have tried my best." If, in addition to your sickness and your child's sickness you've been late or absent from work on additional days, this will have been chalked up. You compounded that by not declaring your disability, so it will have looked like you were unreliable.

Just a thought. I suffer from headaches from overhead lighting especially strip lights. I believe you can get spectacles which might help or even a head shade. Many offices are poorly lit so going forward visit opticians and do your research.

Try and sort support for when your 7 year old is unwell so you don’t need to take time off.
You now know that you’re entitled to a written contract and at interview ask about length of probation period. Also whether the employer has a limited number days to be taken for illness before called in to discuss.

It’s tough out there so you need to do all you can to ensure you keep your next job.

No, your former employer dodged a bullet by placing you on probationary employment where you would have no accrued PTO or sick leave and you failed the test. You show missing 1 day per week since you started the position, you can only account for 6 of those days which is fair too many in the first 12 weeks of a job. Learn from it.

So you start a new job, you then proceed to have a lot of time off, in the time you’ve been there. Looking at it from the employers perspective, as harsh as it seems, they can’t afford to employ you!

I think the law states your employer should give you a contract within two months. Also I imagine every job has a probation period. Maybe if you meet with them they would agree to extend your probation period.

I agree - I’ve had to talk to someone about this kind of stuff in their probation. I’d expect to mention how too much sickness would look and ask if it was likely to be an on-going issue. Of course, a small business might have been panicky about the Dr/lights/migraine stuff but I’d expect to have said we might need to extend probation if things didn’t improve. Maybe they felt OP hadn’t been honest about disability - but sounds avoidable if they had discussed with @Amiunemployable and honestly it wouldn’t sit well with me to dismiss someone without trying to resolve it first and absolutely not out of the blue, that’s unnecessarily cold.

That's not true given you can self certify for a week ?

I don't know if who all of these inhumane companies are

It is a lot op and especially in these first few days you show your best…

2 months in…no you can’t do anything, what would you want to do anyway? Find something else and keep your light so you bring it for new job to avoid repeat of this scenario. Keep trying! It is all the same for everyone :)

I agree I would just cut your losses and move on and next time demand your contract before you start work I did and they did it pretty quickly as they wanted me to start straight away and declare your disability and mention about the lights next time because then they will know it triggers your migraines and then you may have a leg to stand on unless you break your probation period again x

No. By turning up,doing job and salary she’s accepted the role and that’s the implied contract
It is suboptimal to not have a contract,but it has no bearing on the sacking
In first 2 yr employee can be sacked

You can doesn’t mean you should…

and further investigation means exactly that…what is happening? It also not is always bad but if you are off a week…people would want to understand and an answer such as « I can certify myself » will most likely be met with some consequences and depending on the repeat of this.

I believe others may have said this already but speaking from an employment law POV, you cannot claim unfair dismissal if you have worked for less than two years, with some specific exceptions such as dismissal for trying to assert a statutory right. If you feel your employer should have made reasonable adjustments for you as you have a disability, they are not under a duty to do so unless you have informed them of the nature of your disability, how it manifests, and what RAs you would be seeking- change of lighting, shorter hours, different hours etc. But since you say you have not told them you have a disability, the responsibility to make RAs does not apply. I cannot see you have any claims - you can try to negotiate a reasonable amount of notice ( by statute you are only entitled to a weeks pay) plus bit of holiday pay. Plus any wages owed. Did they pay you SSP for your sick days ( if entitled - ie off sick for more than 4 days at a time?) If not, go to HMRC statutory disputes team

Which can rarely be proved....But yes 2 years.

So are you saying that if there had been a contract, back to work interviews and a warning process you would not have taken as much time off?

No. As l said upthread, not declaring a disability is a grey area. I don’t think OP has any case because the absences don’t appear to be in any way attributable to her disability. But if they were, it would be down to the tribunal service to decide if she has a case to take forward, based on whether the employer could reasonably have suspected disability as the root cause of the absence.

Hrft bit that's my take on it too.

Good luck finding a new job hopefully better.

https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/

try them for legal advice

They have blurred the lines by commenting on a probationary period when

Did you tell them you had a disability? And we're reasonable adjustments put in place?

Also, is your disability not allowing to go into the office, or just making you late?

Check your probation policy and see if they did what they were supposed to do in terms of their policy

Disability or not, taking what amounts to a day per week as sick leave would be grounds for dismissal as she’d have shown herself incapable of actually doing the job as required.
Disabled people are entitled to reasonable adjustments to enable them to do their jobs, of course, but working what amounts to part time on a full time salary because they’re not physically well enough to show up every day they’re contracted for is not reasonable.
Hiving off part of your workload to someone else with that sort of regularity is not reasonable.

Because with every label SEN or whatever comes an excuse for bad behaviour/parenting and quite often benefits. Before everyone jumps on me, I actually know of 3 families who have fought to get their kids labelled for no real reason, 2 of whom have admitted to me that the kids now qualify for this, that and the other. These parents are sadly giving their children labels which they will have to carry all their lives. My youngest brother was SEN as a child and he is now very bitter about how it made him different from everyone else and he wished he had never been statemented at school. These days its the children who are not labelled that are in the minority. If parents actually spoke to/read to the child rather than giving them a mobile to look at before they are even out of the pram things would be so much better.

Someone I know worked in the garage. He worked there for nearly 3 months, but in the last two weeks when his father was very ill, he did miss one day because he was being sick from anxiety as he was leaving for work. The day he lost his job, he turned up for work, unlocked the whole garage alone, and found a new employee there waiting for him to train that he knew nothing about. It was a Sunday and the manager didn’t want to look for anybody else or come in herself. He had the worst DNV. Basically, he told her he needed to throw his underwear away and had to keep running into the bathroom. All she said was well I hope you put it in the outside bin. By Monday he had been given the sack. He had clearly been a good worker, otherwise he wouldn’t have had all the keys to unlock everything. It’s the most unfair thing I’ve ever heard. I think the woman’s name was Steph and she was the manager of a garage in Storrington. Apparently all the staff really hated her. She was rude to customers and told them to wait for someone else to serve them when she was clearly doing nothing. Unfortunately, in your probation period it’s really hard If they decide to fire you. Plus higher management will always support the lower Manager because they can’t be bothered to take over if they walk out. It’s a disgrace.

That makes it sound as if you would’ve acted differently had you known you were on probation. Which suggests that you weren’t so ill there was nothing you could do but take the day off.