Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

A Chef

A Catering Company

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint under Section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969 (as amended)

IR - SC - 00004769

21/07/2025

The complainant was employed on March 3rd 2025 and was in the course of his probation when his employment was terminated on July 8th, 2025

The complainant says that his employment was terminated peremptorily, without any prior oral or written warning, and the reason given for his dismissal was fabricated and unjustified.

On June 14th, a supervisor left her shift shortly after starting, leaving the team understaffed and under pressure. She returned to work the next day, June 15th, despite, in his view, (which he shared with his operational manager), that she should not have been allowed to work the next day because her behaviour was affecting everyone.

He formally raised this issue, and a meeting was held with HR, and his operational manager on June 25th, 2025.

Unfortunately, instead of addressing the supervisor’s misconduct, they were critical of the complainant.

On June 30th, he received an email with what he regarded as unfair feedback. He replied to that email on July 2nd, and just a few hours later was invited to a probation review. This review took place a week later, when his probation was terminated without any prior notice, warning, or valid reason.

He says that there was a connection between the incident on June 25th and the decision to review his probation.

He was also criticised by the supervisor in the staff WhatsApp group, and when he informed the management group about her leaving during service he was accused of breaching confidentiality. The  entire process was unfair and retaliatory. He was dismissed without any notice whatsoever

The respondent said that there had been a series of adverse reports about the complainant’s general performance.

While it denies that the decision to terminate his probation was directly triggered by the incident on June 14th, it nonetheless accepts that it was a factor that was taken into account given how the complainant had conducted himself in the course of it.

However, there had been concerns expressed by his manager as early as June 14th in a detailed email to HR and, while this was the same date on which the other incident referred to occurred, it was unrelated and merely a coincidence. The complainant was spoken to informally about these concerns.

Therefore, while it is accepted that there was proximity between the two events the decision to conduct the probation review was not directly related to it.  For example, the complainant refused a direction to move his location which was seen as helpful to diffusing the June 14th incident and this reflected badly on his judgement.

In relation to the probation review meeting this was carried out to a fair standard and the complainant was given the opportunity to comment and reply to a range of issues that were put to him.

In conducting my investigation, I have taken into account all relevant submissions presented to me by the parties.

The complainant’s employment was terminated after just over four months of his probationary period. He has sought to link this to an incident on June 14th in which he was involved in a disagreement with a co-worker.

In due course this was managed as a HR matter and was the subject of a meeting with him. He was not happy at the conduct of the meeting or with its outcome.

Separately, (according to the respondent) there was dissatisfaction with aspects of his performance, including his handling of the June 14th incident and its aftermath.

Whether or not that incident brought forward his probation review is not clear; the respondent denies that it did, the complainant sees them as linked.

In reality, the difference between the two positions may not be all that significant.

The complainant was in the fifth month of his six month probation and was due for some sort of review before the expiry of the sixth month, so in three or four weeks from when it actually took place. An employer who is sufficiently dissatisfied with an employee’s performance on probation is not necessarily obliged to wait out the full period of the probation if there are good reasons to act, and if the process is fair.

In this case the complainant was given notice of the review meeting and presented with quite a list of areas of his performance which gave rise to concern. He confirmed to the hearing that he was given the opportunity to respond to all these concerns at a meeting which lasted about half an hour.

The respondent HR Manager who conducted the review and who attended the hearing said that she and her colleague who attended the meeting then adjourned for about twenty minutes to consider their decision. They decided to terminate the complainant’s probation.

They followed up with a comprehensive statement of their reasons for doing so the following day.

It is quite clear that the incident of June 14th and its aftermath did play a significant role in this, but the complainant did not advance any serious reasons to suggest that it did so unreasonably, and none were discernible from his narrative of events. The letter specified that it gave rise to questions about his ‘judgment and communication with colleagues’, and his ‘approach to feedback and direction’.

While the complainant sought to represent any connection to that incident as something that should not have a bearing on his employment it would have been irrational for the respondent to exclude it and there is no basis to impugn the decision to terminate his employment on that ground, among others.

The role of an Adjudicator in a case such as this is to exercise oversight on the fairness of the  procedures and the reasonableness of the outcome. As with complaints under the Unfair Dismissals Act, it is not to substitute the Adjudicator’s opinion for that of the employer, merely to ensure that it had acted in a way that was procedurally fair.

I conclude that it was fair.

I find that the respondent acted fairly in terminating the probation and nothing further arises.

Termination on probation