Constructive Dismissal – are you entitled to make a claim?

These days the working environment can be an extremely stressful one, fraught with deadlines, targets, competition for promotion and long working hours. Employment laws are in place to protect both employers and employees and to ensure that policies and procedures are drafted and enforced to deal with the various issues that call all too often arise in the workplace.

If you have found yourself in an unhappy position at work - which has caused you stress, anxiety and worry – and which has ultimately led to you (often reluctantly) handing in your resignation, you may be entitled to make a claim for constructive dismissal. Simply put, constructive dismissal means that you were (usually for one of the reasons set out below) put in a position where you felt you had little or no option but to resign from your position. You may have felt that it was impossible to carry on working in the conditions under which you were expected to work. A claim for constructive dismissal can be bought where it can be proven that it was no longer possible for you to work because of reasons such as:

• your employer reducing your pay (without your agreement)
• your employer increasing your hours (without your agreement)
• a change in your working conditions
• unreachable targets being set
• your employer failing to deal with any bullying or harassment issues which are affecting you
• your failing to deal with the stress levels you are suffering from because of your working conditions

It is important that, in the first instance, you take every step available to you to try and resolve the issues that are causing you such stress and anxiety. You should speak to your supervisor or line manager to set out your concerns – of which they may be unaware. Your company will have grievance policy in place and, if after talking to your boss or other colleagues you are unable to find a resolution, you should follow the steps set out therein. You should refer to your contract of employment for terms of your company’s grievance procedure or ask for a copy of the policy from your company’s Human Resources department.

Compensation

Constructive Dismissal claims are not usually straightforward but if you have a strong case and you can prove that you had no choice but to resign from your position then you may be able to make a claim for compensation.

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