The idea of the 'protected conversation' between
employer and employee has been shelved in favour of proposals for
pre-termination negotiations.
The Government originally proposed the idea of the
'protected conversation' as a means by which, as the Prime
Minister put it, 'a boss and an employee could feel able to sit
down together and have a frank conversation at either's
request'. The idea was that matters such as an employee's
performance or their future plans for retirement could be addressed
behind closed doors without the employer being at risk of the
conversation being adduced as evidence in any subsequent
litigation.
However, the proposal that has been included in the Enterprise
and Regulatory Reform Bill (the ERRB), which is currently making
its way through the House of Lords, is far narrower in scope than
the original idea. The concept of the 'protected
conversation' has been dropped and instead, the ERRB creates
the concept of 'pre-termination
