Employment law myths—who are you gonna call?

It is not unusual to find employers making decisions based on an understanding of the law that is centred on a series of urban myths. The problem is that, when employees make mistakes in the workplace, their employer usually has a set way of dealing with those mistakes to protect the business. However, when it is the employer who makes the mistake, it can lead to costly and long-running litigation, loss of management time and bad publicity. With the law being a quagmire ready to trap all who dare to ignore it, I spoke to two employment lawyers for their views on the most frequent of mistakes.

Lucy Gordon puts the concept that an employee can be dismissed with less than 2 years' service and without following a process or giving a reason in prime position for debunking.

She believes that it is ‘understandable that many believe employees are required to have 2 years' service to bring a claim for unfair dismissal. However, having less service does not mean that you can dismiss with impunity’. She explains that ‘employees with any length of service can bring claims for discrimination on the grounds of a protected characteristic’, such as race, sex or for unfair dismissal.