My employee refuses to attend the disciplinary

9th October 2026

There are two versions of this, and almost everything you do next depends on which one you are in. In the first, the employee says they cannot come. They are signed off, or anxious, or their chosen companion is away. In the second, they will not engage at all: no reply to the letter, or a flat refusal, or an empty chair on the day. Most employers treat both the same way, as a stall, and then wait. Waiting is the only move here that reliably costs you something.

Their attendance is not what makes the process fair

Start here, because it removes the thing that is probably paralysing you. A disciplinary process does not need the employee in the room to be fair. The Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures says at paragraph 25 that where an employee is “persistently unable or unwilling to attend a disciplinary meeting without good cause”, the employer “should make a decision on the evidence available”.

That is permission rather than an instruction, and it hangs on two words: persistently, and without good cause. The test a tribunal applies is the general one in section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which asks whether you acted “reasonably or unreasonably” and expressly takes account of “the size and administrative resources of the employer’s undertaking”. A business of eleven people is not held to the process a bank would run. It is held to showing that it tried.

How many times should you rearrange before you go ahead? No primary source gives a number. Not the Code, not the Acas guidance, not gov.uk. Anyone who tells you it is two or three is inventing a rule. What the sources give you instead is a direction of travel: offer a genuine alternative, say in writing what happens if it is refused, and do not let the file go quiet for weeks.

The one postponement you have to grant

Before you weigh up reasonableness, check whether the reason you have been given is the statutory one, because there is exactly one circumstance where the law takes the decision away from you.

If the employee has asked to be accompanied, their chosen companion cannot make the time you proposed, and the employee proposes an alternative time, then section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 says you “must postpone the hearing to the time proposed by the worker”. The alternative has to be reasonable, and it has to fall within the five working days beginning with the first working day after the day you proposed. The Acas Code repeats this at paragraph 16.

So that particular request is not a delaying tactic you are entitled to refuse, provided it sits inside those limits. Outside them, a date three weeks away, or a second postponement for the same reason, you are back in ordinary reasonableness and you can say no in writing, with your reason recorded.

If they say they are too unwell to attend

Treat it as genuine until you have a reason not to. The Acas guidance on the disciplinary hearing says that if the employee is absent or off sick the employer “should contact them and rearrange it”, and should check whether it would help to make other arrangements, for example holding the hearing somewhere else if the employee is worried about coming to the workplace.

Rather than rearranging repeatedly, put the alternatives in a letter and keep a copy: the meeting held by video call or telephone, a neutral venue, a shorter meeting with breaks built in, written representations instead of a meeting, or their companion attending to put their case without them present.

If the sickness continues, ask their permission to get a medical opinion on whether they are fit to take part in a meeting, which Acas lists as something to consider. It is a narrower question than whether they are fit to work, and the answers often differ. Someone can be unfit for their job and entirely capable of sitting through a meeting of forty minutes. If they refuse consent, write down that you asked and that they declined. The sequencing advice on an employee signed off with stress after a performance conversation applies here too.

If they are simply refusing

Here you do have to force the issue, and you do it with one letter rather than a run of increasingly irritated ones.

Set a new date, far enough out to be reasonable and no further. Repeat the allegations and send the evidence again, because a decision made in someone’s absence is only defensible if they had a real opportunity to answer it. Remind them of the right to be accompanied. Then write the sentence most employers leave out: that if they do not attend, and do not give a reason you accept, the meeting will go ahead in their absence and a decision will be made on the evidence available. Offer a date by which written comments would still be considered, and send it by a method you can prove later.

That letter is doing two jobs at once. It makes the process fair, and it closes off the argument that they never realised a decision was coming. Our disciplinary hearing invitation letter template covers the structure, and this version needs the extra paragraph above.

Some employees resign at this point rather than attend, which raises a different question about whether you can finish the process at all.

Is the refusal itself misconduct?

Usually it is better not to go there. Adding a charge of failing to follow a reasonable instruction on top of what you are already investigating widens the process, restarts the clock and hands the employee a second thing to appeal. If your disciplinary policy or the contract requires attendance at hearings, you can note the refusal as a factor in your decision, but deal with the original allegation first and on its own merits.

One consequence of refusing does run against the employee. Where a tribunal finds that a party unreasonably failed to comply with the Code, section 207A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 lets it increase an award by no more than 25 per cent if the employer was at fault, and reduce it by no more than 25 per cent if the employee was, where it considers that just and equitable. Their silence is not free either.

Deciding without them

Hold the meeting at the time you set. Have someone take notes, and record that the employee was invited, did not attend, and what reason was or was not given, which is a different thing from recording it. Weigh the evidence as it stands, including anything they sent in writing, and resist reading silence as an admission. Then issue the outcome in writing with the right of appeal, exactly as you would have done had they been sitting opposite you. Our disciplinary outcome letter template sets out what has to be in it.

The appeal matters more than usual in these cases. It is where an employee who refused to engage finally gets their hearing, and where a first stage that looked thin can still be put right.

Why this gets more expensive in January

Two changes shift the arithmetic for a small employer, and neither alters the procedure above.

Since 1st October 2026 an employee has had six months rather than three to bring most tribunal claims, according to the Acas tracker of changes under the Employment Rights Act 2025, which adds that for a problem starting before that date the three month limit might still apply. Your notes and proof of posting now have to stay findable well over half a year later, which for most small employers means not leaving them in one person’s inbox.

From 1st January 2027 the same tracker says employees will be able to claim unfair dismissal after six months in a job rather than two years, and the limit on compensation will be removed. Acas adds that how these changes are implemented depends in most cases on government consultations, so the detail may move even though the date is set. A decision reached in an empty room about someone eight months into the job sits outside unfair dismissal territory today. From January it will not, and we have written separately about what the change at six months means.

So the process does not get harder. More people can test it, and the ceiling on getting it wrong comes off.

Tarn.hr provides HR guidance based on UK employment law and Acas codes of practice. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. Employment law is complex and turns on the facts of each case. For any situation involving significant legal risk, potential tribunal claims, or matters of particular sensitivity, you should seek advice from a qualified employment solicitor. Tarn.hr is not responsible for any decisions made on the basis of its guidance.