In daily practice, dismissal of employees mainly takes place by means of a termination agreement or a settlement agreement (usually abbreviated as vso). The route via the subdistrict court or the UWV has long since ceased to be the most frequently followed route. A dismissal by mutual agreement offers you a faster and (often cheaper) solution than a procedure. A mutual agreement procedure not only offers a solution in the event of an employment conflict or (partial) economic dismissal, but also after an employee has been unfit for work for two years.

You make final agreements by mutual agreement on the terms of the termination of the employment contract. For an employee, matters will include:

• What severance pay (transitievergoeding) he or she is entitled to;
• Which holidays you will pay out;
• Whether the non-compete clause remains intact; and
• Whether he or she should continue working until the end of employment or be released from work.

All these aspects offer both parties opportunities to make tailor-made agreements that suit their specific situation and needs.

For an employee, it will be important to secure the unemployment benefit. The agreement will therefore have to state that you as the employer will take the initiative for the dismissal and that there is also no urgent reason for the dismissal. In any case, a notice period must be taken into account. The latter will depend on the duration of the employment and also on what the employment contract or collective agreement stipulates in this regard. If an employee is ill, you have to take this into account. After all, you then have to deal with the dismissal ban.

A non-competition and/or non-solicitation clause may have been agreed when the employment contract was entered into. Do you want to stick to this? Then it is important to explicitly include in the settlement agreement that this clause remains in force. If there are any other claims against your employee, such as a study debt, agreements should also be made about this. It is also not unimportant to agree which company property still needs to be handed in.

An employee will need to be convinced that the settlement agreement offers the best solution for both parties. You will need to start the conversation and give the employee an opportunity to consider your proposal and seek advice. Therefore, it is often a good idea to give an employee a week to decide. It may be wise to give him/her time off from work during that period as well. The fact that some conditions sometimes have to be negotiated is unavoidable. But this is always better than having to fight a dispute through the UWV or the subdistrict court.