In Singapore, company reprimanded for wrongly firing a woman at the end of her probation. Having failed to prove poor performance, the tribunal ordered the company to pay compensation of around Rs 19 lakh.
Singapore: A big decision has come out protecting the rights of employees in the corporate world. Singapore’s Employment Claims Tribunal (ECT) has slammed a company for “suddenly and unfairly” firing a female executive at the end of her six-month probation period. The court has ordered the company to pay the maximum compensation available under the law to the victim woman, i.e. about Rs 19 lakh.
In this recently released decision, the Tribunal has given a strong message to the corporate companies. The magistrate clearly said that the company had completely failed to prove that the female employee was not meeting the performance standards required for the post of Audit Manager.
Fired from job after just six months
According to the report, the victim woman in this case started working as an audit manager in a company in April 2025. According to the company rules, his probation period of six months was fixed. But as soon as this period was about to end, the company fired him from the job on the pretext of poor performance.
The woman approached the Employment Claims Tribunal (ECT) against this unilateral decision of the company. He argued in the court that the company never gave him any written or verbal warning during his work. They were judged on performance standards that had never been described before.
The woman also alleged that she was targeted because she had raised her voice on some changes in an internal audit report of the company. He also said that despite the company’s official language being English, he faced discrimination because he did not know Korean. However, after a lengthy hearing, the tribunal dismissed the language discrimination and whistleblower allegations due to lack of evidence, but held that the firing process was grossly unfair. At present, the identity of both the employee and the company have been hidden in the decision under privacy rules.
Company could not prove poor performance
The company tried hard to justify its wrong decision in the court. The company argued that probationary employees have to score at least 80% marks in overall performance and an average rating of 3 in at least 5 out of 10 specific skills. According to the company, this female audit manager had got only 71% marks and a rating of 2.4.
But, Tribunal Magistrate Joel Tan completely rejected this argument of the company. The magistrate found that management had not been able to prove that the numbers given reflected the actual work done by the employee. The most shocking thing was that the woman’s supervisor himself admitted in the court that the employee was not told about any such rating system at the beginning of the job, nor was any official performance review conducted as per the company policy.
Because of this, the employee did not know which target he had to achieve. The magistrate was outraged that the woman had been “effectively kept in the dark.”
There was no concrete evidence for the allegations
The company alleged that the employee missed deadlines, did not follow instructions and there were mistakes in the formatting of the report. But the supervisor also did not raise any questions on the quality of his audit work or technical ability. Most of the company’s concerns were only about minor administrative issues. The magistrate accepted that the employee may need improvement in some minor things, but it is illegal to fire him directly on the basis of rules which are not properly explained.
Highest compensation received within the limits of law
This woman was earning S$11,500 (Singapore dollars) every month. According to the rules, she was entitled to three months’ salary or S$34,500. But the Employment Claims Tribunal (ECT) can only award compensation up to S$30,000. Therefore, the judge ordered to pay the woman the largest amount available within the law (about Rs 19 lakh). Magistrate Tan also said in the judgment that if there had not been this legal limit on compensation, he would have been compensated a total of S$57,500, plus two months’ salary, for the mental distress caused by the wrongful dismissal. The Court sent a strong message with this historic decision: “No company can expect its employee to follow rules about which he has not been properly informed.”