Hello, my colleague has asked me to assist with your query as it is more my area of law. If you have been continuously employed at your place of work for less than 12 months then your employment rights will be limited. Most importantly, you will not be protected against unfair dismissal. This essentially means that your employer can dismiss you for any reason, as long as its decision is not based on discriminatory grounds (i.e. because of gender, race, religion, age, a disability, sexual orientation, etc.) or because you were trying to assert any of your statutory rights (e.g. requesting maternity/paternity leave, holidays, for Trade Union activities, etc). In the event that the reason for dismissal was discriminatory, you can make a claim for discrimination in an employment tribunal as there is no minimum service required to claim, although you would need to provide some evidence to back up your claim.

If your dismissal was not based on any of the above grounds, your only protection would be if you were not paid your contractual notice period. Unless you were dismissed for gross misconduct, you would be entitled to receive your contractual notice period. If you did not have a written contract in place you would be entitled to the minimum statutory notice period of 1 week. Your employer would either have to allow you to work that notice period and pay you as normal, or they will have to pay you in lieu of notice.

If you were not paid your notice period when you were due one, that would amount to wrongful dismissal (which is different to unfair dismissal) and you could make a claim in an employment tribunal to recover the pay for the notice period that you should have been given. There is a 3-month time limit to submit the claim.

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