Termination of Employment Relationships by Dismissal - A Comparison between the UK and Germany

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Business economics - Law, grade: 1,5, Anglia Ruskin University, language: English, abstract: Employees are the most important asset in every business as they are the driving force behind a company's success. However, there are also certain situations where an employee's conduct or lack of knowledge severely harms a business. Therefore, employers need ways to unilaterally terminate the employment relationship with an employee (Konnert, 2005). The termination of a contract by an employer is also known as dismissal. As a dismissal is a one-sided action by the employer, the employee needs to be protected from this action in case the employer takes advantage of his power. This protection is usually granted through the legislation in a country. This report will therefore critically analyse the possibilities for an employer to unilaterally dismiss an employee in the United Kingdom and Germany. In doing so the different types of dismissal will be presented and a further focus will be on the options employees have to protect themselves from being unfairly dismissed. Prior to this, the report will briefly comment on the employment law in the United Kingdom and Germany.