How to Terminate an Employment Contract

How can an employment contract be terminated? By reading the contract, identifying the right to terminate and following the process set out in the contract.

Terminating an employment contract needs to be carefully managed in Australia.

There are a number of legal challenges that businesses can face if it is not done the right way. Further, employees have easy and (generally speaking) low-cost avenues to pursue their employer if their employment comes to an (allegedly unlawful) end.

This article explains how to terminate an employment agreement.

Author: Farrah Motley, Director of Prosper Law and an employment lawyer.

Prosper Law is an employment and contracts law firm. We provide legal advice to employees and employers. If you need to terminate an employment contract today, contact our team of employment lawyers on 1300 003 077.

How to terminate an employment contract

This article will take you through the steps that should be taken to terminate an employment agreement.

• The process to terminate an employment contract
• What laws should you consider when terminating an employment contract?
• Your employee is in their probation period and it’s not working out
• Our employee is not performing to the standard you require them
• Your employee has engaged in some kind of conduct that brings your business into disrepute
• Your employee has stolen from you or a customer

The process to terminate an employment contract

Before any steps are taken to terminate an employee, an employer must read the employment contract. Employers must identify whether and how the contract is able to be terminated. Further, you must read any policies referred to in the contract.

What laws should you consider when terminating an employment contract?

Here’s a basic run-down of the legal framework in Australia: employment is (for the most part) governed by the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) and the Fair Work Regulations 2009 (Cth).

These laws set out the minimum national employment standards. In addition, Modern Awards also cover certain groups of employees (for instance, administrative staff, architects, retail and tradespeople).

These Modern Awards set out the minimum standards for those groups of employees. There is also case law that sets out how those laws and Modern Awards apply in certain situations, as well as dealing with matters that those laws don’t directly address.

Employees don’t have the benefit of unfair dismissal protection if they have been employed for less than six months.

However, they may still bring a claim for adverse action. This can happen when the employee alleges that their employment has been terminated on the basis of a discriminatory reason. For instance, the employee made a workplace complaint or are pregnant).

The problem with a claim for adverse action versus unfair dismissal is that the amount able to be claimed for unfair dismissal is limited. Damages for unfair dismissal are limited to an amount equivalent to six months’ pay. On the other hand, there is no limit on damages for adverse action.

Your employee is not performing to the standard you require them to

Employers must carefully manage underperformance. The employee must be “performance managed”. This means employers must provide specific examples of poor performance, provide specific guidance on ways the employee can improve and meet your requirements, allow the employee to respond and enable a reasonable period of time for the employee to improve.

If this fails (and only after following a carefully mapped out process), only then can you think about proceeding to employment termination.

Your employee has engaged in some kind of conduct that brings your business into disrepute

This may depend on the degree to which the conduct brings your business into disrepute and what policies your business has in place. If the conduct is bad enough (and you have an appropriately worded employment contract and policies), you may be able to summarily dismiss your employee.

This may also mean that you do not have to pay any notice period to your employee.

If your business does have appropriate policies in place, and depending on the conduct of the employee, you may be able to summarily dismiss your employee.

As set out above, this may also mean that you do not have to pay any notice period to your employee.

Your employee has stolen from you or a customer

You must be able to prove that your employee has stolen. And you must prove this on the balance of probabilities. This is because the civil standard of proof applies to the termination of an employment contract. If you can, you may choose to summarily dismiss your employee, report the matter to the police and pursue your employee for recovery.

It should be noted that employers cannot deduct any amounts from final payments owing to their employees. This is the case even if the value of the stolen item is more or less than the payment owed. You must pay all outstanding entitlements, and then pursue your employee separately.

When employers don’t have any work for the employee to do or that role can be absorbed by one or more of your other employees

Here’s where redundancy comes in. It’s important to note that redundancy doesn’t just come about because a person’s role is no longer required to be performed by that person. But, it can also come about because you don’t require that role to be performed by that specific employee because the duties can be absorbed by one or more of your other employees.

With redundancy, however, you need to be careful. An employee could argue that they were unfairly dismissed. For instance, where an employer doesn’t follow the consultation requirements. That is, the requirements in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) and any applicable Modern Award

How can Prosper Law help?

Prosper Law is Australia’s online law firm. We provide legal advice to businesses and individuals across Australia. Our areas of legal practice include contracts, eCommerce, publishing, legal counsel and employment law.

If you need to talk to an employment lawyer, get in touch today.

Contact the team at Prosper Law today to discuss how we can provide you with workplace legal advice for a fixed fee or at affordable hourly rates.

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Farrah Motley | Director

PROSPER LAW – Australia’s Online Law Firm

P: 1300 003 077

E: farrah@prosperlaw.com.au

W: www.prosperlaw.com.au

A: Suite No. 99, Level 18, 324 Queen Street, Brisbane, Queensland Australia 4000