Unfortunately, at times clubs with employees may determine they need to terminate an employee’s employment due to a specific reason or reasons such as poor performance, misconduct and redundancy. 

When doing so however it is vitally important that clubs are aware of the rules surrounding this and provide any necessary due process. Failing to do so can not only damage relationships and reputations but also risk claims arising such as unfair dismissal or general protections claims which can be costly in time and money. 

With termination for poor performance, where an employee can make a claim for unfair dismissal, it is very important that a club can show that as well as performance being sufficiently poor to justify termination, they were also made aware of the issues and given a suitable time to rectify this. Before any decision is made to take disciplinary action an employee would have to be given the opportunity to respond at a disciplinary meeting with sufficient notice given, the opportunity for a support person etc. Things like warnings and performance management plans are also very helpful in showing that the employee was made aware of the issues and that they needed to rectify them. 

With general misconduct a suitable process is also needed, it can be shown that the issues were sufficient to justify dismissal and that the employee was aware that further instances of misconduct could lead to dismissal (unless the issue is sufficiently serious to be deemed serious misconduct and therefore prior instances are not necessary). Whether or not misconduct is worthy of termination or something like a warning instead will depend on the nature of the issue, surrounding circumstances and if there are any previous warnings or discussions. 

Redundancy is where an employee’s role is no longer needed by anyone and it is the role being made redundant not the person e.g. this is not something to be used in lieu of performance management. The process and validity/reasoning of any redundancy is vitally important and where someone is being made redundant any reasonable areas for redeployment must be considered and where such a role exists it must be offered to the employee (e.g. they can’t just be invited to apply for the alternate role). 

Clubs SA can assist with advice on the correct processes to follow and Clubs SA’s partner, HWL Ebsworth will be presenting a one-hour free webinar on managing terminations on Wednesday 25 February 2026 from 2pm-3pm.  

Clubs with employees, particularly those with a decent number of employees, regardless of whether they are currently having any staffing issues are urged to attend the webinar. There will be a great deal of important information being presented by a very experienced workplace relations lawyer for no cost.