Dear Sirs,

My brother has worked for his company for nearly 3 years ( he joined in August 2005) under a permanent contract. About 8 months ago, he took up a more senior position in a different department but within the same firm and signed a separate contract under which he was subject to a 6 month probation period. At the time when he took up this new position, there was no mention of what would have happened to his old position in the event of unsatisfactory probation. He was under the impression he would just return to his old full time position.

During the probation period, he was assessed periodically. According to him, he did not receive the kind of supervision /support he should have ad and he had a total of 4 assessments: 1 assessment was carried out during the 6 month p/period; 1 were carried out 2 days after the expiry of the pp and the other 2 were carried out weeks after the expiry of the pp.

Then 8 months after he took up the new role ( ie 2 months after the expiry of the pp), he was summoned to the office and told that he had failed his assessment without any prior warning and he was told to return to his old department on a part time basis as there was no full time position available.

When he complained that he was being unfairly treated, the answer was that the compnay do not have full time position although my brother knows that this is not true as some of his colleagues have been approached by supervisors for full time position in the same old department.

Since he lodged a complaint, he has been subjected to disciplinary action on the basis that he was on site during his one day sick leave.He feels he has been victimised and unfairly treated and feared that he would be dismissed.

Please advise if the company’s position is correct?

Yours sincerely,

Anon