How to defend yourself against an employment tribunal

It is a document where the employer writes a few words about you about his qualifications, skills and other facts that are relevant to the job. It is used to give the prospective employer some sort of confirmation from the previous one as to what qualities the employee has. The employer is obliged to give this report to the employee within 15 days. However, not earlier than 2 months before the end of the employment relationship.

The report should not include an assessment of whether the employee is suitable for the new position, nor should the employer include any personal information about the employee. All information should relate to the employee’s job performance and, where applicable, the employee’s conscientiousness, work ethic, initiative and, discipline, organisational and management skills and teamwork ability etc.

Today, this assessment is rather on the decline as employers usually verify or find out information about the employee themselves. Another reason may be that the employee does not always part on good terms with his employer, who may then retaliate in the appraisal. The employee can defend himself against this within three months from the date he became aware of the contents of the report and seek a court action to have the employer amend the report accordingly.

How to defend against the assessment?

If an employee misses out on a new position as a result of a false assessment, he or she can then claim damages from the employer, for example, in the form of lost profits from the job he or she did not get because of the false assessment.

Employers should therefore take care to ensure that any claims made in the report about the employee can be proven at a later date.