We took on a staff on a probationary period and stated in the offer letter that if the staff’s work does not meet our standard between 1 to 3 months after date of commencement he would be entitled to a week’s notice and vice versa. However, it did not specify what period of notice will be required if the employment is terminated before 1 month. After employing this staff for only 3 days we found that his work was so below our standard that we paid him for those 3 days and sent him a P45. He has now left our firm. We have not paid him the week’s notice period and naturally he is demanding the same. We feel cheated that he only worked such a short period of time and yet we still have to pay for a week that he will not have worked.

Can anyone advice what the Employment Law states on this matter. Does the offer letter override the Employment law even if later is more beneficial to the employer? No contract of employment was issued at the time he left.

Finally, can we compel him to come & work for a week now even though he left about 2 months ago and is not presently working elsewhere? We can perhaps ask him to do low level work like photocopying, filing, etc? He was employed to do property letting work by us initially.

Look forward to any suggestions or ideas.
Jerry