Podcast

Employment Tribunals

An Introduction to Employment Tribunals

If you are an employee and you think that you may have been unfairly treated by the person that employs you, then making a claim and attending employment tribunals may be the answer. Employment tribunals are there as a way of resolving disputes that arise in the workplace and is a judicial body. These disputes are resolved in employment tribunals and focus on the area of employment rights.

Employment tribunals will allow a person who has a claim or application to bring their dispute with their employer to be heard in front of a judicial body. This will happen if the employee has not been able to sort out the problem with their employer at work. At times, employment tribunals can deal with a great many different issues that have arisen in the work place between employee and employer. These issues are often things like pay disputes, which can cover anything from holiday pay to notice pay. Other issues brought to employment tribunals can include dismissal, redundancy payments or discrimination.

On this page you will find a summary of the types of problem that can lead to a employment tribunals and the accompanying claims. This page also looks at how employers can help to ensure that claims do not arise in the first place, which can be done if good practice is used in the workplace. This summary will aim to only give very general guidance and should not be regarded as a complete and authoritative statement of the law regarding employment tribunals.

Problems that can lead to employment tribunals
Research has shown that the main reasons for an employment tribunals and associated claims are quite wide ranging and are listed below. Claims in employment tribunals are sometimes about unfair dismissal and unlawful deductions from wages. Research has shown that around a third of all employment tribunals cases are made up of these kinds of claims.

The most common claims are for:

Unfair dismissal
Unauthorised deduction of wages
Breach of contract
Unequal pay
Sex discrimination
Redundancy pay
Disability discrimination
Race discrimination
Redundancy - failure to inform and consult

Avoiding problems that can lead to employment tribunals

It is true that a lot of the claims that eventually end up in employment tribunals would actually have not got to that difficult stage, if both the employers and employees follow proper procedures in the workplace. It is often said that clear communication is the key to avoiding this final step of going to employment tribunals and resolving the dispute at an earlier stage.

Employment tribunals can be avoided if for employees are given clear guidelines outlining the conditions of their employment. Another way in which getting to employment tribunals can be avoided is if employers make sure that they adhere to the correct procedure when they choose to dismiss an employee. If these things have been done properly by the employer, then if a claim is taken to the employment tribunals, it will have a lesser chance of success.

Further Information