Reminder As To Why You Need to Keep Personnel Files Up to Date!
The Employment Appeals Tribunal has upheld a decision (Stratford v Auto Trail VR Ltd UKEAT/0116/16) that an employee was fairly dismissed when, having decided that a disciplinary offence merited a final written warning, the employer went on to dismiss the employee after considering his history of expired warnings and its belief that there would be future conduct issues.
The Court held that once an employer finds an employee guilty of an offence of gross misconduct, the employee's disciplinary history (including expired warnings) can be taken into account when determining sanction.
The employer is still bound by the age old question of whether the employer acted reasonably or unreasonably and to the equity and the substantial merits of the case for the purposes of section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 but it is interesting to see the Appeals Tribunal allowing expired warnings to impact that reasonableness test.
A reminder to keep personnel files up to date and accurate.
Posted on 01/12/2017 by Ortolan
