Letter confirming decision on employee appeal against disciplinary hearing dismissal

What is a letter confirming decision on employee appeal against dismissal and when should you use it?

This is the last letter in your disciplinary process.

Once the Appeals process has been completed and a decision made, the disciplinary process is at an end.

This letter contains several drafting options, designed to reflect the different conclusions you may have reached:

• to stick to your earlier decision to dismiss the employee – i.e. nothing has changed
• to revoke your earlier dismissal decision, which has the effect of it never having been made (the employee is reinstated on their earlier employment terms)
• to vary your earlier dismissal decision, which you will need to explain

If you choose, on appeal, to take a less severe route than dismissal, such as redeploying the employee to another part of the business or demoting them you should check the terms of the employment contract to confirm what rights you have to action these alternatives.

The WRC Code recommends that an employer should inform the employee of the outcome of the appeal in writing as soon as possible after the hearing.

It’s highly advisable to explain the reasons for your decision in a reasonable level of detail.

In each case, this letter prompts you to make clear why you’ve reached this decision.

It also expressly states that this is your final decision in the process and there are no further rights of appeal under your disciplinary process.

The decision taken at the appeal stage is equally open to scrutiny as the original decision.

It should never be viewed as a rubber-stamping exercise.

Take care to ensure that you have addressed each ground of appeal that the employee has raised.

Prior to sending this letter, you may want to meet with the employee in person to deliver this message face to face and then hand them the letter during that meeting.

Dismissal always carries risks, so if you’re in any doubt about taking the next steps, we recommend taking some expert advice first.

You can find out more about the appeals process in our step by step guide to handling a disciplinary issue