Can I dismiss an employee who has under one year's service without going through the disciplinary procedure?

Many contracts of employment state that the disciplinary procedure does not apply during the probation period. This is a potentially useful contractual provision to rely on where the employee has under one year's service and therefore does not have the requisite service to bring an unfair dismissals claim. However, employers should be aware that the EAT will add on statutory or contractual notice (whichever is the greater) to the employee's service in order to bring the employee who falls short of the one year within the timeframe. For this reason, the notice period should always be checked before making the decision to dismiss without following the disciplinary process. Most employers will