IANAL, but it is possible to do this under UK law - employees in the UK can be fired for any or no reason for the first 2 years, providing they are not being di

IANAL, but it is possible to do this under UK law - employees in the UK can be fired for any or no reason for the first 2 years, providing they are not being discriminated against (religion, gender etc). After that, they can be fired if it is for fair reason, and a fair process is followed. Underperformed is a fair reason, and formal stack ranking is a fair process (i.e. no discrimination). The employer would need to update people on their performance regularly, and provide ailing employees with help to improve. Underperformed sales staff are fired regularly like this pretty much everywhere. It is true that firing employees does expose an employer to litigation / tribunal, which can be expensive. However, an employer that is doing stack ranking and is prepared for that sort of thing would not fall victim to the usual things that get companies in trouble - not having good enough performance metrics to justify firing the only X in that department, or assigning unpleasant work to employees to drive them out (which can be seen as constructive dismissal). I have also noticed some large companies hiring the bulk of their staff as contractors, and 'firing' them for 3 days a year so that they don't become employees. This would make them basically at will employees, but I am not sure how well this would stand up if tested. This book is cool: http://www.cm-murray.com/little-books/little-book-of-uk-employment-law-for-us-employers/ http://www.cm-murray.com/little-books/little-book-of-uk-empl...