If your employee agrees to their dismissal or redundancy, you will be able to end their contract without requiring permission from us or a district judge. This means you will be able to end the contract either by mutual consent (‘wederzijds goedvinden’) or with your employee’s consent (‘opzegging met instemming’).

Ending a contract by mutual consent

Ending a contract by mutual consent means you and your employee will need to come to agreements on several aspects of the dismissal or redundancy. These agreements should be clearly written down in a settlement agreement (‘vaststellingsovereenkomst’). It is important that the following key information is also included in the settlement agreement:

• You must confirm the dismissal or redundancy was initiated by you and explain why. This is important as your employee will not be entitled to an unemployment benefit otherwise.
• You must specify you are not dismissing your employee because of ‘gross misconduct’ (this is behaviour that is so serious it destroys the trust between you and your employee).
• You must specify the employment is ending by mutual consent.
• You must include the date on which the employee will receive their final pay (‘eindafrekening’).
• You must clearly state your employee will be given 2 weeks to consider the proposed settlement agreement. If this information is not included in the agreement, your employee will have 3 weeks to consider the offer.

Ending a contract with your employee’s consent

If you decide to end a contract with your employee’s consent, it is much more of a one-sided process. You initiate the dismissal or redundancy and your employee agrees to it in writing. Your employee will also be entitled to dismissal or redundancy pay (‘transitievergoeding’) in such a case.

Make sure you tell your employee in writing that they will have 2 weeks to consider the proposed redundancy or dismissal. If you do not do this, they will have 3 weeks to consider your proposal.

Summary dismissal refers to the immediate dismissal of an employee without warning. It is only allowed in cases of gross misconduct, where an employee’s behaviour seriously harms the company or its employees. Some examples of gross misconduct include the following types of situations:

• theft or fraud
• violence or harassment
• discrimination or deeply offensive behaviour
• refusal to work (‘werkweigering’)

Your employee must be informed of their summary dismissal as soon as you find out about the act of gross misconduct. They must also be told why they are being dismissed. If there is any uncertainty about what happened, you will need to start an immediate investigation into the situation. You can suspend your employee from work (‘op non-actief stellen’) while this is going on.

You do not need our permission or that of a district judge to summarily dismiss your employee. Your employee can, however, challenge the dismissal by asking a district judge to overturn it in court. If the judge rules in your employee’s favour, the employment contract will remain legally binding. This is why we recommend submitting a dismissal request to the district judge as soon as possible when issuing a summary dismissal.

• Your employee is still in their probation period.
• Your employee has a fixed-term contract (tijdelijke arbeidsovereenkomst), which will not be renewed when it reaches its end date.
• Your employee has reached the state pension age (‘AOW-leeftijd’).
• Your employee is being made redundant because you cannot pay them what you owe them
• Your employee belongs to 1 of the groups for which permission is not required (for example, individuals who provide home help services and work less than 4 days a week).