What Confirmation Of Employment Means
You are not sure if your role was ever formally confirmed before you were dismissed.
Confirmation sounds like a small formality, but it marks a real legal shift in your employment status, and disputes over whether it ever happened are surprisingly common.
What It Means
Confirmation is the step where your employer formally ends your probation period and confirms you in your role, usually through a letter or a clear written communication.
Once confirmed, you are treated as a permanent employee for most purposes, rather than someone still on a trial period.
Why It Matters To You
This status directly affects the numbers if your case later reaches an award. Back wages are capped at 24 months for a confirmed employee, compared with 12 months for a probationer.1
Disputes are common where probation quietly rolled on past its original end date without any formal letter either confirming you or extending the period.
Why Does This Status Change Things
Check your original contract for the stated probation length, then compare it with how long you actually worked before dismissal, since a mismatch can support an argument that you were effectively confirmed.
If you are still unsure how probation applies to your case, that page covers the earlier stage in more detail.
Whatever your status turns out to be, the same 60-day deadline applies, so confirm it on the deadline calculator without delay.
Telling us what your contract or any letters said about your probation end date helps us work out your actual status.
Common questions
What if my employer never confirmed me but also never extended my probation?
A probation period that quietly continues past its stated end without a clear decision is a common, genuine dispute. A lawyer can help work out how your specific paperwork and dates should be read.
Does verbal confirmation count?
It can support your position, though written confirmation, such as a letter or an email, is stronger evidence. Keep anything in writing that referred to your status as confirmed or permanent.
Sources
- Back wages awarded by the Industrial Court are capped at 24 months for a confirmed employee and 12 months for a probationer, under the Second Schedule of the Industrial Relations Act 1967. DNH, Monetary Remedies at the Industrial Court
Keep reading
Telling us what your contract or any letters said about your probation end date helps us work out your actual status.