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Employers are entitled to terminate their employees. However, an employer must carry out the termination in a reasonable manner and on reasonable grounds otherwise it will be an unfair dismissal. There are a number of wholly legitimate reasons for terminating someone's employment. For instance, it may be reasonable to dismiss an employee if he commits a serious act of misconduct or if he is no longer able to carry out the duties of his job.

Redundancy is one reason for employment termination. Redundancy means that the employee is no longer needed because the business is closing down or because it no longer requires a worker with the employee's particular skill set. Should an employee be terminated for either of these reasons, he is entitled to a redundancy payment if he has been in continuous employment by the organisation for at least two years. If the employer is falsely claiming redundancy to cover up a lack of reasonable grounds for the termination, the employed may have a claim for unfair dismissal.

Regardless of the circumstances surrounding the termination, the employer is always required to be both fair and reasonable. For example, an employer is well advised to issue warnings about unacceptable behaviour and give the employee a chance to rectify the situation before moving forward with termination which may otherwise be determined by an Employment Tribunal to be an unfair dismissal. When an employer decides that termination is necessary, he must first thoroughly investigate the circumstances surrounding the employment so that he can adequately justify the decision. Failure to provide reasonable grounds for the termination can result in the employee making a claim for compensation for unfair dismissal to the Employment Tribunal.

In order to make a claim for compensation for unfair dismissal, the applicant must have been employed for at least one year. Also, the applicant must be below the normal age of retirement. There are five permissible reasons for termination. To win the case, the employer must prove that the applicant was terminated because of conduct, illegality, redundancy, capability or some other substantial reason. The compensation awarded for a successful claim of unfair dismissal claims is divided into two categories, the Basic Award and the Compensatory Award. The Basic Award depends on the employee's age and their length of service which is statutorily capped however the Compensatory Award which is also statutorily capped is much higher. It serves as compensation for an employee's financial losses caused by the termination, including loss of benefits and personal expenses.

Those who believe they have a claim for unfair dismissal should act quickly and contact a solicitor as soon as possible. The employee has only 3 months from the date of their dismissal to file their claim in the Employment Tribunal. If the employer gives the employee notice, then the effective date of termination will be the date on which the notice expired. If the employer does not give notice to the employee, then the effective date of termination is considered to be the date on which the termination of the employee took effect. The Employment Tribunal does have discretion when it comes to the time limit. If the Tribunal finds that it was not reasonably practical for the employee to file the claim within the 3-month time frame, it can opt to extend the time for that individual.