Under Singapore’s Employment Act 1968 an employee who is dismissed without just cause may bring a claim before the Employment Claims Tribunals. Poor performance is a commonly cited ground for dismissing an employee. Whilst employees are generally given the latitude to set their own standards, the recent decision in JIW v JIX [2026] SGECT 7 clarifies that the failure to meet such standards as a justification for dismissal also requires clear communication and fair application of such standards.
BACKGROUND OF CASE
The claimant was employed as a regional internal control audit manager and was subjected to a six-month probationary period. Shortly before her probationary period ended, she was informed that her performance had not met the standard required for full time employment and was given two weeks’ written notice of termination.
From the outset of her employment, two suitability standards had been set for confirmation: an overall score of at least 80% across her five weighted performance goals, and an average rating of at least 3 out of 5 across ten functional competencies. She was ultimately assessed as having attained an overall score of 71% and an average competency rating of 2.4 which was rounded down to two, missing both thresholds. Crucially, she said she only saw the comments, ratings and scores behind this assessment for the first time on the day she was told she had failed probation.
The claimant challenged her dismissal on three grounds:
- That the poor performance allegations were unsubstantiated and the evaluation process procedurally deficient;
Her dismissal was connected to her inability to understand Korean, a language her job description did not specify that she had to speak which was used in internal discussions to which she was excluded from; and - Her dismissal was in retaliation for raising concerns about a proposed restructuring of the internal audit function.
- The respondent (her former employer) claimed and maintained that the dismissal was based solely on the claimant’s failure to meet pre-set performance targets and low competency ratings recorded in her probation evaluation form.
KEY LEGAL FINDINGS
- The burden of proof rests with employers; under s.27(2)(b) of the Employment Claims Act 2016, an employer alleging poor performance must prove the allegation. It is not enough to simply produce a low aggregate score.
- Employers may calibrate their own suitability standards; the Tribunal accepted that different organisations may legitimately set different standards for the same role, further clarifying that the Tribunal itself would not act as a “superior manager” and second-guess those thresholds
- Vague, qualitative standards must be explained and documented; where competencies are described in subjective terms, the employer’s own probation management process should require supervisors to explain what a passing rating required and to conduct periodic, documented reviews. In this case, it was not done and as such could not be relied upon.
- Ignorance of a standard is not the same as an inability to meet it; the Tribunal drew a clear distinction between an employee who cannot perform to a standard and an employee who was never informed what the exact standard was.
- Changing how different goals are weighted, without telling the employee, makes the evaluation unreliable as a ground for dismissal; In the case, the reporting supervisor had unilaterally shifted the weightage of an unfinished goal onto another, effectively doubling its significance without informing the claimant, which further weakened the credibility of the employers claim of poor performance.
- Genuine shortcomings do not automatically justify dismissal; the Tribunal accepted the fact that the claimant had some genuine shortcomings, but found that these were not proven to be significant enough on their own to establish that dismissal was a justified and proportionate response.
- Language based discrimination and whistleblowing claims are valid grounds for complaint against an employer; The tribunal accepted that language-based disadvantages could in principle amount to discrimination and whistleblowing retaliation is a valid ground of complaint but found no evidence in this case in connection with the Claimant’s dismissal.
THE CASE AGAINST THE CLAIMANT AND WHY IT FAILED
The Respondents’ case rested on six below-average competency ratings and four scored performance goals. Each is worth examining individually, since the Tribunal’s reasons for rejecting them illustrate exactly where the evaluation process broke down.
The six contested competencies had each been rated 2 out of 5 by the claimant’s supervisor. At the hearing, the only justifications offered were general impressions: that the claimant seemed to lack passion for certain tasks, appeared inattentive during a briefing on the business, or could have been more proactive on matters outside her core audit function. None of this had been recorded in the evaluation form’s dedicated justification column, which was left entirely blank, and none of it was backed by the periodic, documented reviews that the respondent’s own probation process required. The Tribunal found these amounted to little more than a supervisor’s subjective impressions, not a reasoned assessment against a standard the claimant had ever been told about.
The ICFR audit reports attracted a 25-point deduction on three grounds: a missed reporting deadline, a failure to provide interim updates, and non-compliance with a reporting format. On the deadline, the Tribunal found that the dispute was really about labelling, not substance: if the company’s own policy was to treat unresolved controls as failures, it made little difference whether the claimant described a handful of outstanding items as pending clarification or marked them as failed outright. On interim reporting, the Tribunal accepted the claimant had genuinely failed to comply with a direct request, but found no evidence this had any material effect on the goal’s completion. On formatting, no evidence of any specific defect was produced. With none of the surviving issues shown to justify a deduction of that size, the deduction of 25 points was not allowed to stand.
The financial health check, weighted at 20%, also attracted a 25-point deduction for a missed deadline and unspecified technical and formatting defects. The Tribunal found no evidence that the delay was attributable to the claimant, and no evidence beyond the supervisor’s own say-so of the alleged defects.
The ad hoc assignments goal was originally weighted at 10%, but was unilaterally raised to 20% without the claimant’s knowledge after another goal was removed from her evaluation. The central complaint here was that the claimant had not produced a requested audit plan for certain business segments. The Tribunal accepted this was a genuine shortcoming, but still found the resulting deduction unjustified as the claimant had never been told how this composite goal would be scored, nor that a single incomplete task would carry such heavy consequences, particularly once its weighting had quietly doubled.
The training goal, weighted at 10%, foundered on a basic dispute over what had even been asked of the claimant. With no corroborating email, meeting record, or other documentation put forward by the respondent, the Tribunal held that it could not establish what standard the claimant was supposed to have met, let alone that she had failed to meet it.
The respondent’s two supporting witnesses fared no better. A senior colleague testified that the claimant did not meet expectations, but failed to identify any specific standard she had fallen short of, and his assessment relied largely on secondhand feedback from her supervisor. A HR officer pointed to conversations in which the claimant had voiced concern about her own prospects on probation. The Tribunal found these conversations reflected the claimant’s fear that she was being judged against an unstated standard, not any admission that her performance was genuinely deficient.
Taken together, the pattern across every allegation of poor performance was found to be either unproven, immaterial, or measured against a standard the claimant was never told she had to meet.
IMPLICATIONS OF THIS CASE ON PERFORMANCE-BASED DISMISSALS
The decision elucidates to employers that a robust-looking appraisal process is only as good as its execution. Three practical lessons stand out.
First, the dismissal must be properly justified. An aggregate score a below-average rating is not prima facie evidence of poor performance. The employer must be able to show that each component of the score reflects a genuine and proven shortcoming, not merely a supervisor’s subjective opinion.
Second, performance issues must be documented dutifully throughout the review process, not reconstructed after the fact. Where an employer’s own process calls for periodic reviews, appraisal justifications or defined scoring criteria, failing to follow that process will make it very difficult to rely on the final rating should disputes arise. Contemporaneous records carry far more weight than testimony given for the first time at a hearing.
Third, performance standards and expectations must be clearly communicated to the employee. Especially where the standard involves qualitative or subjective descriptors. An employee, experienced or not, cannot be expected to intuit an employer’s specific expectations and as such cannot be penalised for falling short of a standard that they were never given a meaningful opportunity to understand or meet.
FURTHER MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION
Having found the dismissal to be without just cause, the Tribunal awarded the claimant S$30,000. Representing under three months of her salary for the loss of income.
Notably, while the dismissal itself was found to be wrongful, the claimant’s separate allegations of language-based discrimination and retaliatory whistleblowing were both dismissed for lack of evidence linking them to the decision-makers involved. This illustrates that a successful wrongful dismissal claim does not require every subsidiary allegation to succeed. A claimant need only establish, on the facts most central to the case, that the dismissal itself lacked just cause or excuse.
CONCLUSION
JIW v JIX [2026] SGECT 7 reinforces that while employers retain the discretion to set their own suitability standards for confirmation, the Employment Claims Tribunals will scrutinise closely whether those standards were fairly and transparently applied. Employers seeking to dismiss an employee for poor performance should ensure that the expectations are clearly set out from the start, performance is documented consistently throughout the relevant period, and that any adverse rating or failed standard is capable of being justified with reference to a standard that the employee is aware of. Ignorance of a standard, however reasonably set, cannot be treated as an equivalent to an inability to meet it.
