Constructive dismissal for unbearable job

Hello there. I am Gemma, a legal assistant at Lawyer Destroyer. I would be happy to explain how constructive dismissal works in England and Wales.

It is possible to claim constructive dismissal if your employer makes your job truly unbearable, but it is important to know right from the start that this is one of the hardest employment claims to win.

In legal terms, constructive dismissal happens when your employer commits a fundamental breach of your employment contract, leaving you with little choice but to resign.

The legal position:

In most successful constructive dismissal claims, the employee relies on a breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence. This means the employer's behaviour must be so unreasonable that it seriously damages or completely destroys your working relationship.

This could be one severe incident, such as significantly cutting your pay without agreement, forcing you to work in dangerous conditions, or a completely unjustified demotion. Alternatively, it can be a series of smaller incidents over time that eventually make normal working entirely impossible. This is often called a last straw scenario.

To claim ordinary constructive unfair dismissal, you almost always need to have worked for your employer continuously for at least two years. Importantly, you must resign specifically because of their bad behaviour, and you must not delay too long before handing in your notice. If you wait months to resign after the severe incident, a tribunal may decide that you accepted the poor treatment and chose to stay anyway.

The practical reality:

Resigning to claim constructive dismissal is a massive financial and emotional risk. You immediately stop getting paid, and employment tribunals require very strong evidence to prove that the employer's behaviour was intolerable, not just annoying or mildly unfair.

Because of the delay, stress, and cost of tribunal proceedings, it is often much more sensible to try and resolve the problem or negotiate a financial exit package while you are still employed and receiving your usual salary.

Practical next steps:

1. Gather your evidence. Keep a detailed, private diary of every incident that is making your job unbearable. Write down exactly what happens, the dates, the times, and who was present. Save copies of relevant emails or messages securely, making sure you do not breach any confidentiality rules by sending sensitive company data to a personal email address.

2. Check your length of service. Confirm you have been employed there for at least two years. If your employer's unbearable behaviour is specifically because of discrimination or because you blew the whistle on bad practice, you might not need two years of service, but this is a more complex type of claim.

3. Raise a formal grievance. This is a vital step. You should put your complaints in writing and submit them using your employer's official grievance procedure. This forces the employer to investigate. Even more importantly, if you resign and go to a tribunal without having tried to resolve things through a grievance first, the judge can reduce your compensation by up to 25 percent.

4. Explore a negotiated exit. Often, raising a formal grievance signals to an employer that the relationship is breaking down. They might approach you to offer a settlement agreement. This involves them paying you a lump sum to leave your job voluntarily and agree not to take them to court. This saves everyone the huge stress and uncertainty of a tribunal.

5. Contact ACAS. If the grievance solves nothing and you feel you absolutely must resign, your next step is to contact the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. You must start a free process called Early Conciliation. This is a mandatory legal requirement before you are allowed to submit a formal tribunal claim.

6. Submit a tribunal claim. If ACAS Early Conciliation fails to broker a settlement between you and your former employer, you can lodge your claim. You generally have a strict time limit of three months less one day from the exact date your employment ended to start this process.