Dismissal in employee’s absence

A tribunal would expect a reasonable employer to reschedule a meeting at least once, especially where there is a good reason for non-attendance. An opportunity to appeal should be offered even if the employee failed to attend the dismissal hearing.

If an employer does go ahead and dismiss the employee in their absence because they have persistently failed to attend without good cause, whether the dismissal was fair will always depend on the overall reasonableness of the employer’s actions and not on whether the employee’s attendance would have made a difference to the outcome: see Nabili v The Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust UKEAT/0437/13/DM.