Will they take you to an Employment Tribunal? Probably not.
May 16, 2015
If I had a £ for every time a client said to me ‘what if they take me to an Employment Tribunal?’ I would be in that beach villa in Ibiza right now and would not be coming back!
My answer is quite simple: there is now a 75% chance they won’t take you to an Employment Tribunal, so the odds are now, more than ever, in your favour.
The odds have improved for employers not being taken to employment tribunals?
Quite simply and quite rightly in my view, there is now a charge to any employee who wants to lodge an Employment Tribunal claim, with fees ranging from around £400 to £1,200 depending on the type of claim. If you win when the case is heard by the employment tribunal you get the charge back. More details on fees available here.
In a year, this simple charge has seen Employment Tribunal claims by employees drop by a whopping 75%, yes that’s right 75%. That suggests to me that either an awful lot of people out there had too much time on their hands when it was free, and decided to try their luck, or there are now an awful lot of people out there suffering in silence – take your pick!
How to spot an employment tribunal chancer
The chancers – because they can … or rather because in the old days they could. Chancers come in various guises and may not be easily identifiable but they usually have a few things in common.
- An inability to take any personal responsibility for their actions – it’s usually everyone else’s fault;
- A tendency towards being work shy which is what causes a lot of the problems in the first place;
- An encyclopaedic knowledge of their ‘rights’;
- Usually have form – in other words ‘previous’.
Be afraid no longer
Chancers operate on fear – your fear, that is, as a small business – by dangling the Employment Tribunal threat constantly, which potentially could put you out of business. Don’t be afraid. Like most chancers they are no fools. They can usually tell when the game is up and will cut their losses, and there is no one like a shrewd HR professional who has been around to dispatch them calmly, efficiently and as inexpensively as possible. I may know one if you ever need one …
Favourite chancer threats include race, sex, disability, any form of discrimination in fact, but they have to prove it and rarely do. Regardless, you as the employer are left picking up the pieces, and usually the hefty legal bill before it even gets to court. With the introduction of fees, this has reduced the chancer’s odds somewhat of even lodging a claim to begin with, especially as they have to lodge a grievance first.
Hiring Tercus HR to deal with a chancer will definitely reduce any potential of a claim by at least 75%. If you think an employee situation in your business is heading to the courts, or is just a situation getting out of control and you need a shrewd solution, get in touch with Tercus HR. We’ve been there and done that.
