FREE GLOSSARY

Employment law glossary

Employment tribunal claims come with a lot of jargon. These are plain-English definitions of the terms you are most likely to meet - from ACAS Early Conciliation and the ET1 through to Polkey reductions and the Vento bands. Each links to a fuller guide where one is available.

This guide covers England and Wales. It is general information, not legal advice.

Reviewed by the Aricase editorial teamLast reviewed 25 June 2026

Process

ACAS conciliation certificate: The certificate ACAS issues at the end of Early Conciliation, whether or not the dispute settled. You cannot present most tribunal claims without its unique reference number. Once it is issued you have the longer of the time left on your original deadline, or one month from the certificate date, to file the ET1.
ACAS Early Conciliation: A free, confidential service from ACAS that you must notify before you can bring most employment tribunal claims. A conciliator contacts both sides to see whether the dispute can be settled without a hearing. Notifying ACAS also pauses the tribunal time-limit clock while conciliation runs.
Case management order: A direction from the tribunal setting out the steps each side must take before the final hearing and by when - for example exchanging documents, witness statements, or preparing the bundle. Failing to comply can lead to sanctions.
Claimant: The person bringing the employment tribunal claim - usually the employee or worker. You are the claimant; the employer you are claiming against is the respondent. If you bring your own claim without a lawyer you are a litigant in person.
Costs order: An order that one party pay some of the other side's costs. In employment tribunals each side normally bears its own costs, so a costs order is the exception - typically where a party (or their representative) acted vexatiously, unreasonably, or pursued a claim with no reasonable prospect of success.
Deposit order: An order that a party pay a deposit (up to a statutory maximum per allegation) as a condition of being allowed to continue with a specific claim or argument the tribunal considers has little reasonable prospect of success. It is a warning about costs risk, not a penalty in itself.
Disclosure: The stage where each side provides the other with the documents relevant to the issues - both those that help and those that harm their own case. It typically happens to a deadline set by a case management order.
Employment tribunal: An independent judicial body in England and Wales that decides disputes between employees or workers and employers - such as unfair dismissal, discrimination and unpaid wages. Hearings are less formal than the civil courts and each side usually pays its own costs.
ET1 claim form: The form used to start an employment tribunal claim. It sets out who you are claiming against and what your claims are. You normally cannot submit it until you have an ACAS Early Conciliation certificate, and it must reach the tribunal within the time limit.
ET3 response: The form the employer (the respondent) uses to respond to an ET1 claim, normally within 28 days of being sent the claim. It sets out which parts of the claim they accept or dispute and their grounds of resistance.
Hearing bundle: An organised, paginated set of the documents both sides will rely on at the hearing, usually agreed between the parties. The tribunal, witnesses and parties all work from the same bundle so everyone refers to the same page numbers.
Litigant in person: Someone who brings or defends a tribunal claim without a lawyer representing them. Employment tribunals are designed to be used without legal representation, and many claimants act as litigants in person.
Preliminary hearing: A hearing held before the final hearing to deal with case-management matters (such as setting a timetable, clarifying the issues, or ordering disclosure) or to decide a specific preliminary point (such as whether a claim was brought in time). It can be in private or in public depending on what it covers.
Reconsideration: A request asking the tribunal to look again at a judgment where it is necessary in the interests of justice - for example because of a procedural mishap or new evidence that could not reasonably have been available before. It is not a general appeal; a point of law goes to the Employment Appeal Tribunal instead.
Remedy hearing: A hearing - sometimes combined with the main hearing, sometimes separate - held after a claim succeeds to decide what the employer must pay or do, for example compensation or, more rarely, reinstatement.
Respondent: The party a tribunal claim is brought against - normally the employer, though an individual (for example in a discrimination claim) can also be named as a respondent. The respondent replies to the claim using the ET3 response form.
Schedule of loss: A document setting out the compensation you are claiming and how it is calculated - for example lost earnings, loss of statutory rights, and any injury to feelings. It helps the tribunal and the other side understand the value of the claim.
Strike out: An order by which a tribunal dismisses all or part of a claim or response before a final hearing - for example because it has no reasonable prospect of success, was not actively pursued, or a party failed to comply with orders. It is a serious step and the tribunal must usually give a warning and a chance to respond first.
Time limit (limitation period): The deadline for bringing a claim. For most employment tribunal claims it is 3 months less 1 day from the event you are complaining about, and you must notify ACAS to start Early Conciliation within that window. Statutory redundancy pay and equal pay claims have a 6-month limit.
Witness statement: A written, first-person account of what a witness saw or did, exchanged before the hearing and usually taken as their main evidence. At the hearing the witness confirms it and can then be cross-examined on it.

Claim types

Automatic unfair dismissal: Dismissals for certain prohibited reasons - such as pregnancy, whistleblowing, trade union activity, health and safety activities, or asserting a statutory right - that the law treats as unfair regardless of process. These have no qualifying period, so they apply from day one. A few categories (notably whistleblowing and health and safety dismissals) carry uncapped compensation; the rest are subject to the ordinary compensatory award cap.
Breach of contract: A failure by either side to honour a term of the employment contract. Employees can bring some breach-of-contract claims (such as unpaid notice) in the tribunal once employment has ended, subject to a statutory cap on the amount.
Constructive dismissal: Where you resign in response to a fundamental breach of your employment contract by the employer - conduct serious enough to entitle you to treat the contract as at an end. You generally need to resign promptly and not affirm the breach. It is treated as a dismissal for unfair dismissal purposes.
Direct discrimination: Treating someone less favourably than others because of a protected characteristic - such as age, disability, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation - under the Equality Act 2010.
Equal pay: A claim under the Equality Act 2010 that a worker is entitled to the same contractual pay and terms as a comparator of the opposite sex doing equal work - the same work, work rated as equivalent, or work of equal value. It is distinct from a general sex discrimination claim and has its own 6-month time limit.
Harassment: Under the Equality Act 2010, unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that has the purpose or effect of violating someone's dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. General workplace bullying is not itself a standalone tribunal claim unless it is linked to a protected characteristic or another legal right.
Indirect discrimination: Where a provision, criterion or practice that applies to everyone puts people who share a protected characteristic at a particular disadvantage, and the employer cannot objectively justify it as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
Redundancy: A dismissal because the employer's need for employees to do work of a particular kind has ceased or diminished - for example a workplace closing or a role disappearing. A genuine redundancy still requires a fair process, and employees with 2 years' service are usually entitled to statutory redundancy pay.
Unfair dismissal: A statutory claim that an employer ended your employment without a fair reason, without a fair process, or both. Most employees currently need 2 years' continuous service to claim ordinary unfair dismissal, though many 'automatically unfair' reasons need no qualifying period.
Unlawful deduction from wages: Where an employer fails to pay wages that are properly due, or deducts money without a legal right, your written agreement, or a contractual term allowing it. Claims are brought under Part II of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
Victimisation: Being subjected to a detriment because you have done a 'protected act' - such as making or supporting a discrimination complaint, or alleging a breach of the Equality Act 2010.
Whistleblowing (protected disclosure): Where a worker reports certain wrongdoing in the public interest - a 'qualifying disclosure', such as a criminal offence, a breach of a legal obligation, or a danger to health and safety. Workers are protected from dismissal or detriment for making a protected disclosure, with no qualifying period and uncapped compensation for dismissal.
Wrongful dismissal: A breach-of-contract claim, usually for dismissal without the notice (or notice pay) your contract or statute required. It is different from unfair dismissal: it is about the contractual notice, not the fairness of the dismissal, and it has no qualifying period.

Key concepts

Continuous employment (qualifying period): The length of unbroken service with an employer. Many rights depend on it - for example you currently need 2 years' continuous service for ordinary unfair dismissal and statutory redundancy pay.
COT3: A settlement recorded through ACAS (named after the form) that settles a tribunal claim or potential claim. Unlike a settlement agreement, a COT3 does not require the employee to take independent legal advice.
Disciplinary hearing: A meeting your employer holds to consider allegations about your conduct or performance before deciding on any action such as a warning or dismissal. The ACAS Code of Practice gives you rights including notice of the allegations, the right to be accompanied, and a right of appeal.
Effective date of termination (EDT): The date your employment legally ends - normally your last day of employment or the day notice expires. It is the usual trigger date for the unfair dismissal time limit and for calculating length of service.
Garden leave: Where an employee who is serving notice is told to stay away from work while remaining employed and paid. The contract continues, so duties of loyalty and confidentiality still apply, but the employee does not attend or carry out work. It is different from pay in lieu of notice, where employment ends immediately and the notice is paid out.
Grievance: A formal complaint raised with your employer about a workplace problem. Following the ACAS Code of Practice, you normally put it in writing, the employer holds a meeting, and you have a right to appeal the outcome.
Protected characteristic: One of the nine characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Treating someone unfavourably because of one of these can be unlawful.
Protected conversation: A pre-termination settlement discussion that, under section 111A of the Employment Rights Act 1996, generally cannot be referred to in an ordinary unfair dismissal claim - even if there is no existing dispute. The protection does not cover discrimination, automatic unfair dismissal or whistleblowing claims, and is lost where there has been improper behaviour.
Reasonable adjustments: Changes an employer must consider making to remove or reduce a disadvantage that a disabled person faces at work - for example adjusting duties, equipment, or working arrangements. The duty arises under the Equality Act 2010.
Settlement agreement: A legally binding agreement in which an employee waives certain employment claims, usually in return for a payment. To be valid it must meet statutory conditions, including that the employee received independent legal advice on its terms.
Without prejudice: A legal rule that protects genuine attempts to settle an existing dispute from being shown to a tribunal. For it to apply there usually has to be a real dispute already in existence between the parties.

Money & remedies

ACAS uplift: An adjustment of up to 25% that a tribunal can make to certain awards where an employer (or employee) has unreasonably failed to follow the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Basic award: A fixed element of unfair dismissal compensation calculated like statutory redundancy pay: a number of weeks' pay based on your age and length of service, with the weekly pay figure subject to a statutory cap. It does not depend on your actual financial loss.
Compensatory award: The part of unfair dismissal compensation that reflects your actual financial loss from the dismissal - mainly lost earnings and benefits, and subject to your duty to mitigate. It is normally capped (see statutory cap), though discrimination and whistleblowing awards are not.
Injury to feelings (Vento bands): Compensation for the upset and distress caused by discrimination, awarded in three brackets known as the 'Vento bands' (lower, middle and upper). The band figures are updated each year by Presidential Guidance and depend on how serious the discrimination was.
Notice pay: Pay for your notice period. There are statutory minimums - broadly one week after a month's service, rising to one week per full year up to a maximum of 12 weeks - and your contract may give more. Not paying proper notice can give rise to a wrongful dismissal or breach-of-contract claim.
Polkey reduction: A reduction to the compensatory award to reflect the chance that you would have been dismissed anyway even if a fair process had been followed. It takes its name from the House of Lords decision in Polkey.
Statutory cap (compensation limit): The legal limit on the compensatory award for unfair dismissal: the lower of a fixed annual figure (reviewed each April) or 52 weeks' gross pay. Importantly, there is no cap on compensation for discrimination, whistleblowing, or health-and-safety dismissals.

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