I have a situation at work that I would like to be sure of

I understand your employer has presented you with options concerning your employment. What official reason have they provided for presenting these to you?

OK thank you, ***** ***** are you ideally hoping for, given the circumstances?

OK I understand and thank you for providing this information. Please do not worry and leave it with me for now. I will get back to you with my full reply on here; usually the same day. The system will notify you when this happens. Many thanks.

Hi there. I just want to make you aware that this is not always an instant service, due to various legal engagements I could have and I may not be able to reply immediately. However, rest assured that I will be dealing with your query and will get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks.

Many thanks for your patience, it is appreciated. I am now pleased to be able to provide further assistance with your query. First of all, I am sorry to hear about the issues brought up by this. It must be a frustrating situation to be going through.

The main issue in the circumstances is the fact that you have only been continuously employed at your place of work for less than 2 years. That means that your employment rights will be somewhat limited. Most importantly, you will not have legal protection against unfair dismissal. This basically means that you can be dismissed for more or less any reason, if you have done nothing wrong and without a fair procedure being followed. The only exception is that the decision is not based on a reason which makes a dismissal automatically unfair.

As mentioned, there are some exceptions to this, in which case the 2-year rule does not apply. These include situations where the dismissal was wholly, or partly, due to:

- Discrimination due to a protected characteristic (i.e. because of gender, race, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, etc.)

- Taking, or trying to take, leave for family reasons including pregnancy, maternity/paternity leave, parental leave, adoption leave or leave for dependants

However, if the dismissal had nothing to do with any of the above exceptions, you would not be able to challenge it due to not meeting the minimum service criteria for claiming in the Employment Tribunal. In that case your only protection would be if you were dismissed in breach of contract. That would usually happen if you were not paid any contractual notice period due to you, unless you were dismissed for gross misconduct. That is where you were guilty of something very serious which justifies immediate dismissal, without any notice pay.

In any other circumstances, you would be due a minimum notice period, as per your contract, together with and associated pay. If you did not have a written contract in place, you would be entitled to the minimum statutory notice period of 1 week. You either have to be allowed to work that notice period and get paid as normal, or you can be paid in lieu of notice. That is when you are paid for the equivalent of the notice period but your employment is terminated immediately and you are not expected to work any further.

Based on the above, your rights will be rather limited, when it comes to challenging them or negotiating something better than what is on offer.

I fully appreciate that this may not be the answer you were hoping for, however it is the legal position. Should you need any further clarification, I will be more than happy to discuss things further with you. Thank you

A garden leave period is basically where you are working your notice period, without the actual need to do any work or go into work. You are effectively spending the notice period in your garden at home, hence the phrase garden leave. You continue getting paid as normal but should also be available for work if needed by the employer. At the end of the garden leave period your employment would terminate.

Well you are saying that you do not know what you are agreeing to, but they are proposing the garden leave period so not sure what you are trying to say in your response?

I am pretty certain that the whole point of the garden leave is that you agree to leave and in return they will drop the performance management, There is no point in performance management if you are leaving on 6 weeks time, especially when you will not be working during that time.