Dismissal During Probation - How Do I Handle It?

“We are in the process of restructuring our business given the impact of Covid-19 on it. There are some employees with little service, who remain on probation, and who have not performed over the last few months while working remotely. We intend to rely on probation clauses to terminate employment relationships (rather than extend probation). How do we handle this?”

Proceed with caution! Terminating during probation was always one of the more straightforward ways in which to terminate an employment relationship, given that employees did not have the requisite 12 months’ service to bring an unfair dismissal claim. Two years ago, employers were given a wake-up call when the “At Your Service”