A serious incident does not excuse a slow decision or an improvised final payslip.
The till is short. A customer payment does not match the invoice. The employee with system access is due at work tomorrow morning. In a small company, the founder may need to protect cash, customers and colleagues before breakfast while still establishing what happened.
That is when immediate dismissal can feel like the cleanest answer. Dutch employment law treats it as an exceptional route. The employer needs an urgent reason, must act without delay and must communicate that reason without delay. Suspicion, evidence, timing and wording must all meet.
Thirty years around Dutch payroll, administration and company decisions have taught me that the expensive part rarely begins with the dismissal letter. It begins earlier, when people investigate without recording who knew what, which access was restricted, what still needed checking and why another day was necessary.
The clock needs a story
Book 7 of the Dutch Civil Code provides the framework for immediate dismissal. Fraud, theft and serious breaches of employment duties may support an urgent reason. Official employer guidance also requires evidence. An employer may need time to investigate, hear the employee and obtain advice.
That time is not automatically fatal. Drift is.
If further investigation is necessary, the employer may suspend the employee while salary continues. The business must still move with purpose. There is no standard number of safe investigation days. The real question is whether each interval can be explained by work that was genuinely needed.
Rechtbank Midden-Nederland applied this distinction in a decision dated 24 August 2026, ECLI:NL:RBMNE:2026:6126. The court repeated the three requirements: an urgent reason, dismissal without delay and communication of that reason without delay. It found that the dismissal in that case had not been given promptly enough.
The financial consequences included compensation for irregular termination, a transition payment, interest, costs and a proper gross-net salary specification. Those amounts belonged to that dispute. The wider signal is more useful: a credible concern about conduct does not repair a weak route from discovery to decision.
Misconduct and process are different questions
Employers often collapse two questions into one. Did the employee do something serious? And did the company end the employment correctly?
They are not the same question. Serious employee conduct may affect entitlement to a transition payment. Official guidance states that such a payment is generally due when an employer ends employment, but it may not be due where the employee acted in a seriously culpable way. A court still assesses the facts when the employee disputes that position.
An invalid immediate dismissal and serious misconduct can therefore coexist as legal and commercial issues. That distinction may feel artificial to a founder facing missing money or a safety breach. It is not artificial to the wage administration, the court or the company bank account.
I read this as a governance question before I read it as an HR question. Who had authority to investigate? Who decided that enough was known? Was the employee heard? Did the dismissal reason match the evidence available at that moment? Could the business show why it waited?
The unavoidable question is this: what are we accepting or postponing today, and what cash, people, compliance and market result will that decision produce?
The final payslip is not a recovery tool
Return to the short till. The founder may believe the missing amount should simply come off the employee’s final wage. That is an understandable commercial instinct, but the alleged loss and payroll are separate matters.
Dutch rules restrict deductions and set-off against wages. Pay cannot simply be reduced below the statutory minimum hourly wage, and some deductions require written permission. A suspected claim against an employee does not automatically become a lawful payroll entry.
The payslip must show how wages are built up, including deductions or set-off and the period concerned. Once an exit is disputed, salary, holiday pay, unused leave, pension, collective labour agreement terms and bank payments may all receive close attention. A hurried recovery entry can create a second dispute before the first has been resolved.
This is where a small employer can lose financial proportion. Management may be trying to contain a modest cash loss while creating exposure to continued salary, notice-period compensation, payroll corrections, interest and professional costs. The founder’s time also comes from customers, staff and the work needed to recover the original loss.
Controls before confrontation
The strongest protection is often not a harsher dismissal letter. It is a business that can reconstruct an event quickly.
For roles involving cash, stock, customer payments, certification or digital access, the records should reveal who processed a transaction, who approved it, what the system captured and when management noticed the difference. That is ordinary internal control, not corporate ceremony.
Small Dutch companies often divide these records among a founder, workshop manager, accountant and external payroll provider. Each may hold a correct fragment while nobody holds the complete sequence. The difficulty appears when a court, adviser or employee asks for one coherent account.
A sensible review starts with the company’s own rhythm. Can a manager record the first discovery date? Is there a clear person who may restrict access? Can payroll distinguish a disputed recovery claim from an agreed deduction? Do employment terms, working hours, pension records and leave balances reconcile before the final payslip is issued?
Back at the short till, the immediate task remains real. Protect the money. Preserve the records. Keep customers and colleagues safe. Urgency does not mean skipping the decision trail. It means making each necessary step quickly and recording why it was necessary.
Immediate dismissal can be appropriate. It is simply too narrow and consequential to serve as an emotional shortcut. A calm investigation may require paid suspension and a different dismissal route. That can feel slower on Monday morning. It may prove far less costly when the whole company story must later be told.
If an urgent employment decision could affect payroll, cash flow or compliance, contact me to review the decision trail and its financial consequences.
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Linda Pavan Geraedts. AI was not used to identify sources, build the factual basis, or produce the analytical judgment contained here. AI was used only as a drafting aid. The final English text was personally reviewed, edited, and approved by Linda Pavan Geraedts before publication.
References
- Ontslag op staande voet niet rechtsgeldig, geen transitievergoeding of billijke vergoeding · Salaris Vanmorgen
- Wettenbank - Statutory test for immediate dismissal
- Ondernemersplein / Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment - Official employer guidance on urgent reason, evidence and timing
- Rechtspraak - Verified court signal on the three requirements and financial consequences
- Ondernemersplein / Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment - Transition payment and serious employee misconduct
- Ondernemersplein / Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment - Set-off, deductions and the payroll record after a disputed exit
- Ondernemersplein / Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment - Payslips, final settlement and traceable wage administration
- Rijksoverheid - Ordinary dismissal routes as the alternative to a rushed immediate dismissal
