Most employment disputes we are asked to help with are not about whether the employer was right. They are about whether the employer can demonstrate it, and whether the correct procedure was followed. Those are different questions, and the second one loses more cases.
The contract you signed is the one that counts
Written contracts are required, and the terms in them govern. Problems begin when the document is a template that no longer describes the job: duties that changed years ago, a salary superseded by informal increases, working time that does not match the actual pattern.
When a dispute arises, the written terms are the starting point and the informal arrangement is something you will have to prove. Keep contracts current, and record variations in writing when they happen.
Cause has to be documented as it happens
Dismissal for performance or conduct requires evidence, and evidence assembled after the decision reads exactly like evidence assembled after the decision.
If performance is the issue, there should be a record showing the standard, where the employee fell short, what was communicated, what support was offered and what happened next — created contemporaneously. A file containing nothing but positive appraisals followed by an abrupt dismissal is very difficult to defend, whatever the underlying reality.
Process errors cost more than the merits
Notice periods, the sequence of meetings, the employee’s opportunity to respond, and the form and timing of the decision all have requirements. Skipping a step does not merely weaken the case; it can determine the outcome on its own, even where the substantive reason was sound.
Severance, unused leave and final payments should be calculated and documented at the point of termination, not negotiated afterwards.
The cheaper path
Before terminating, ask what the file would look like to someone who was not there. If the answer is thin, the options are to build the record properly over the coming weeks, or to negotiate a documented mutual termination. Both are considerably cheaper than defending a procedurally defective dismissal.