in this video I want to take a look at something that comes up very very
frequently in my experience and that is employees on probation and being
dismissed or terminated on probation so in this video I want to just take a look
at probation generally probation generally is a term at the commencement
of your employment where your suitability for the job is going to be
assessed so the employer is going to assess the new employees suitability for
the job the mayor may not fit into the general ethos of the organization they
may or may not be generally good inand right for the organization that's what
it's for that's what the probation period is for to assess suitability
typically an employment contract will have a clause in it which will say
subject to the successful completion of your probation period you will be
employed as whatever now the probation period may be three months it may be six
months it may also be extended up to or extendable up to 11 or 12 months so
during that period of time this is a period of assessing for suitability for
the employee or of the employee for the job during the probation period there
should be one or two reviews at least in other words there should be some
feedback given to the employee as to how he or she is getting on an important
thing to consider as well or to understand about the probation period is
that the full panoply of the Disciplinary procedure is unlikely to be
available or to be applied it's also the case that other policies such as the
dignity at work policy and the grievance policy or procedure will not be applied
in full in other words there may be an abbreviated or truncated version of
these for somebody on probation but because
you're on probation you may not necessarily get the full benefit of the
normal disciplinary procedure which may apply after you have successfully
completed you need to be aware of that because a lot of employees contact me
and say they didn't tell me what I did wrong they didn't give me the right to
appeal they didn't bring me through the disciplinary procedure most employees on
probation most companies on probation will not I will make it clear in the
contract that they will not be brought through the full disciplinary procedure
during the probationary period so be careful about that and you need to
understand that the other thing is that you may have a contract of employment
with say a month's notice in it that's in the ordinary course of events and
that's after you've completed your probation generally during probation
you'll find that the clause in the contract will make provision for
termination of the employment with one weeks notice during the probation period
so be careful and understand that the options for employees on probation
because the probation period does in the last 12 months and because the probation
period doesn't exceed rather 12 months and therefore the employee on probation
who is dismissed or terminated after three months or six months or nine
months or indeed 11 months will not have the necessary 12-month service to obtain
the benefit of the unfair DeCinces Act 1977 that being the case there are very
limited options open to an employee who has been dismissed whilst on probation
two such options however would be one if the grounds for termination during
probation was one of the discriminatory grounds and there's nine grounds of
discrimination if one of those grounds was or if the termination was founded on
one of those discriminatory grounds then the employee could bring a claim because
under the employment equality legislation the discrimination based
legislation you do not require 12 one service another Avenue maybe or
the protection of whistleblowers Act of 2000 or protection of protected
disclosures Act of 2014 again if you're penalized or dismissed
for having made a protected disclosure you don't require or need the full 12
months service there's no service requirement therefore you could bring a
claim if you were fired on probation for having made a protected disclosure it
could be difficult to case the window if you are unable to prove that the reason
for your dismissal was the protected disclosure so in summary if you're on
probation it is a period of suitability the normal full range of procedures and
policies will not necessarily apply to you during probation and you are quite
frankly in a weakened off position when you're on probation so the options open
to you if you've been dismissed are limited enough I mean another couple of
videos one at least about the options I believe open to an employee who has been
terminated on probation you might want to check out that video as well and this
information on my web site employment rights Ireland calm I hope you find this
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