Summary Dismissal- Importance and Meaning

Summary Dismissal is a situation where an employee is terminated with or without prior notice due to any misconduct by them.

Table of content 

• What is Summary Dismissal?
• Summary Dismissal example
• Procedures for Summary Dismissal
• Dismissal vs Summary Dismissal
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is Summary Dismissal?

Summary Dismissal is a type of termination where an employee is asked to leave the organization immediately due to some dishonest or illegal activity they were involved in. The employee, with or without prior notice or without the pay in lieu (PILON), can be dismissed from their existing position and terminated right away.

When an employee commits a consequential breach of the contract that entitles the employer to consider it as a terminated contract without delay, it is called Summary Dismissal.

Example of Summary Dismissal

 According to a Gartner report, 41 per cent of the Workplace misconduct is reported. These misconducts include doing forbidden activities at the workplace for example,

• Usage of any kind of intoxicant while working like alcohol, drugs or other substances
• Not following the rules and regulations of the workplace
• Damaging the company’s properties
• Dishonest activities like fraud, harassment, bribery
• Stealing the company’s crucial data to use it for some odd purpose

In such circumstances, the employer can issue a termination of the employee with an immediate effect without notice and without a pay in lieu of notice (The payment made to an employee when they are at their notice period).

Procedures for Summary Dismissal

Irrespective of the seriousness of the misconduct happened, the employer is compelled to follow an established set of rules and procedure to take measures for the process. With the aim of doing justice to the employee, a brief inquiry is conducted. There are certain steps that are followed.

1. Issuance of the intention of summary dismissal to the employee to highlight the misconduct that they have committed.
2. Collect all the significant evidence with the intention of proving the misconduct. The evidence is important; it would be hard for the employer to proceed without a notable confirmation that any unlawful activity has been done.
3. Once the evidence is cleared, witnesses are questioned, and their statements are recorded.
4. A disciplinary meeting is held by the committee where the matter is discussed along with the head of that committee, HR and the offender.
5. All the evidence is presented in front of the employees and questions are asked about the misconduct.
6. The meeting is concluded with a final verdict.

This is how the official process of summary dismissal takes place. If the employee is held guilty, an official summary dismissal letter is issued in their name along with the gross misconduct committed by them. That letter contains all the information regarding,

• The decision to oust the employee from the organization
• The reason for summary dismissal
• Nature of misconduct in brief
• Investigation details
• Last day of their office
• Cause for having summary dismissal as the last option
• The option to appeal the decision along with the information of who they should appeal and the deadline

Dismissal vs Summary Dismissal

• Summary dismissal and dismissal are extremely different from each other. Summary dismissal is an immediate effect. That means the employee is dismissed immediately without notice and paid in lieu of notice. Whereas, if we talk about a normal dismissal, the employee is given a notice period, let’s say for a week or a month and they are paid for that period as well.
•  Summary dismissal happens due to extreme reasons that includes committing illegal activities, stealing the organizations’ data. While a dismissal can be due to other reasons such as not doing the job properly, long-term illness, redundancy, disobedience.
• Summary dismissal holds stringent rules and regulations in terms of the termination of an employee whereas it is not the case in a dismissal.
• In a dismissal, the employee is given a caveat before asking them to discontinue, but it is not the case in summary dismissal. The employee is not given any warning. The employee is immediately terminated after all the investigation is done.

Summary Dismissal leads to a negative impact on the professional life of an employee. Thus, everyone at the workplace should maintain harmony and peace by following the rules and regulations of the organization.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)  

What are the reasons for Summary Dismissal?

Summary Dismissal can happen due to many reasons including,

• Committing illegal activities at the workplace.
• Revealing or stealing the crucial data of the organization.
• Damaging the property of the company.
• Committing dishonest activities like Fraud, bribery, harassment.
• Not following the rules and regulations of the company after being given warning.

What are the factors considered when dismissing an employee summarily?

When a situation as that of Summary Dismissal arises, there are several factors that are considered such as past performance of the employee, the offence historybut the main factor that leads to the summary dismissal is the nature of the employee’s misconduct or offence.

When is Summary Dismissal unlawful?

Summary Dismissal can be considered unlawful when the misconduct with respect to the organization is not triggered. It is unlawful, that means the Summary Dismissal is null and has no effect on the employee.