Letter inviting employee to an appeal hearing following a disciplinary action

What is a letter of invitation to attend an appeal hearing and when should it be used?

This letter should be used in response to an employee’s written request to appeal against any decision you’ve taken during a disciplinary, redundancy or dismissal process.

It invites the employee to attend an appeal hearing to reconsider or review the allegations and decision made against him/her.

Subject to any contractual company disciplinary procedure that you may be obliged to follow, this is the final stage of the appeal process.

If the employee is still dissatisfied with the decision, then they must lodge a claim with the WRC and/or other court of law as appropriate.

Depending on the employee’s grounds for the appeal, the appeal may require a full rehearing or could be limited to a review of the original decision.

It is important for the purpose of fairness that the appeal meeting would be held by another, more senior, but crucially impartial person and not by the person who chaired the original meeting.

This can cause some difficulty for small business owners.

What we would suggest in a situation like this is that you have an independent person chair the appeal meeting.

Even though you’re not convinced that an appeal will alter the outcome of your original decision, you should always offer the employee the right to appeal and be prepared to hold an appeal meeting.

Again, this comes down to fairness.

Subject to any contractual company disciplinary procedure that you may be obliged to follow, this is the final stage of the appeal process.

If the employee is still dissatisfied with the decision, then they must lodge a claim with the WRC and/or other court of law as appropriate.

What else might you need?

For more guidance and information on appeals, what to be prepared for and for what comes before this stage, you’ll find our step by step guide to handling disciplinary issues, our step-by-step guide to handling employee performance and step-by-step guide to handling a grievance very helpful.