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It is always advisable to comprehensively assess the risks before going ahead with terminating an employment contract. A reason which, at first glance, seems sufficient for dismissing an employee will not always be justified from a legal perspective. Generally, the law requires a specific reason for terminating an employment contract: its absence, or incorrect wording, opens the way for the employee to pursue claims in court.
There is no shortage of disputes concerning dismissals. The Ministry of Justice’s statistics show that they constitute the second largest category, by number, of all cases brought by employees. In the first half of 2025, 8,927 cases were recorded concerning the validity of termination notices and 5,864 cases involving disciplinary dismissals. In the whole of 2024, there were 10,599 and 7,152 such cases respectively, whereas 9,133 and 6,627 in 2023.
According to established case law, the reason for termination must be genuine, specific, comprehensible, current and valid (see Supreme Court resolution of 27 June 1985, III PZP 10/85).
In practice, it may happen that an employee, who is within a period of notice, seriously breaches basic duties, giving the employer grounds to terminate the employment contract without notice (a disciplinary dismissal). In such case, the employer will not have to wait for the period of notice to expire: the employer will be able to terminate the contract immediately due to a fault of the employee, without having to withdraw the earlier notice of termination.
Nevertheless, such a decision carries significant legal consequences as the employee may appeal against both the notice of termination and the disciplinary dismissal. Furthermore, the only provision of the Labour Code that explicitly governs the effects of an immediate termination of employment due to a fault of the employee within a period of notice is Article 60 of LC, and it does not cover all possible situations. Below, we discuss common scenarios and their practical implications for employers.
Previously, legislators considered that allowing employee records (including personnel files) to be kept in electronic form had comprehensively resolved the issue of digitisation in employment relations. This was not the case, as archiving documents is not the same as creating them. In many instances, labour law provisions continued to favour the paper-based workflow of documents.
For some time now, however, the trend has been to facilitate communication in labour law matters and allow the use of electronic tools in a broader scope.
We have published several articles on our website regarding the proposed changes to the legislation on workplace bullying (mobbing). The most recent, in February 2026, discussed the government’s draft bill, which was submitted to the Sejm (Polish Parliament’s lower house). On 19 June 2026, the Sejm passed the Bill amending the Labour Code and the Civil Procedure Code.
We described the basic intentions of the Bill, such as the definition of workplace bullying, minimum compensation, employer’s liability and the obligation to issue internal regulations, in detail in discussions about its earlier versions. Here, we focus exclusively on the parts that were amended during the passage through parliament.
Social media today serve as a forum for expressing views on a wide variety of topics relating to both private and professional life. How should employers respond to employees’ activities in the virtual space that may conflict with the company’s values or even openly harm its interests?
Artificial intelligence has burst onto the business scene: it assists with writing e-mails and taking notes, creating products and services, and even designing advertising materials. The operational benefits for employers are undeniable, but they are accompanied by serious risks regarding copyright and other intellectual property rights. We identify quite a few in our practice. Below, we highlight two key areas that have become shrouded in certain myths and misconceptions.