Christopher Davies, professional support lawyer, Halliwells

Raef Bjayou and Alex Wotherspoon were this week’s project managers leading their respective teams in the task of creating a television advert for tissues. Raef’s team lost as the advert, while very artistic, failed to promote the actual product. The basic flaw as Sir Alan pointed out was that it wouldn’t sell the tissues. In the boardroom, Raef faced Sir Alan with team mates Claire and Michael.

The boardroom showdown resulted in the surprise choice of Raef being fired. Many will have sympathised with Raef. The decision to fire him rather than one of his team mates must be one of the biggest shocks of the series.

While he did fail this week to give sufficient thought to identifying the product in the advert, his record in the previous tasks has generally been very good. In week eight his selection of the expensive wedding outfits led to the team winning, in week seven he bought the best bargain and contributed well to the team winning the shopping challenge, in week six he had come up with the winning idea of celebrating single’s day cards.

In contrast the other two facing the board had in that same period come very close to being fired following failed tasks and poor performances.

He had clearly been a better performer than either Claire or Michael in the previous weeks and yet was still fired ahead of them. It appears that for Sir Alan the candidate’s previous record is not a relevant factor when assessing who to fire.

In contrast in the workplace when an employer is considering the dismissal of an employee their previous record is very important. This is particularly relevant where the employee is subject to disciplinary action. The disciplinary record of the employee should always be taken into account.

If there are ‘live warnings’ on the employee’s personnel file then these should be taken into account. An employee may be dismissed if subject to a final warning when another act of misconduct takes place. Even expired warnings may in some circumstances be relevant. Where a number of employees are guilty of misconduct for which they could be dismissed the existence or absence of a previous warning may be the difference between the employer actually firing the employee or giving them another chance.