The exit conversation is off the record until it isn't

The invitation is usually short. Have you got five minutes? Can you come by at ten?

In that room you are handed a document. And a few days later, the only thing in the file is a signature you put there yourself.

In the UK that conversation is deliberately inadmissible. The exception to that rule is the whole case.

Two systems, one blind spot

The two countries protect people at opposite ends. The US gives you time around the paperwork and almost nothing around the dismissal itself. The UK gives you a right not to be dismissed unfairly and then makes the conversation about it disappear.

The UK: what section 111A actually covers

Section 111A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 exists so that employers and employees can talk frankly about ending the employment without those talks turning up in a tribunal. Employers call it a protected conversation, a pre-termination negotiation, or simply going off the record.

The rule is that evidence of any offer made or discussion held before termination, with a view to it ending on agreed terms, is inadmissible in an ordinary unfair dismissal claim.

Now the limits, which is where this gets interesting.

It only covers ordinary unfair dismissal. Evidence from the very same conversation is still admissible in claims involving discrimination, harassment, victimisation, automatic unfair dismissal, or other breaches of statutory rights. If what was said in that room touched your age, race, sex, disability, pregnancy or a protected disclosure, section 111A does not bury it.

And it falls away where behaviour was improper. Where anything said or done is improper, or connected with improper behaviour, the tribunal may admit the evidence to the extent it thinks just.

Read those two together and the shape of the thing becomes clear. The protection is designed for a proper conversation. The way you get past it is by showing the conversation was not proper — undue pressure, a threat that the alternative is dismissal regardless, a refusal to give any time to think.

Which raises an obvious problem. Improper behaviour is behaviour. It happens in speech, in a closed room, and it leaves no document. The rule that hides the conversation is lifted by evidence that only the conversation contains.

The UK: the clock, which is changing right now

An unfair dismissal complaint must reach the tribunal within three months less one day of the effective date of termination. Dismissed on 12 July, the last day is 11 October, not the 12th.

Two things are moving.

From 1 October 2026, the time limit for most tribunal claims is being extended to six months less one day.

ACAS early conciliation stops the clock while it runs, and legislation in force since 1 December 2025 extended that maximum period to twelve weeks. After it ends, you still have at least one month from the date of the certificate to file.

And separately, the qualifying period is falling. The government dropped the plan to make unfair dismissal a day-one right; instead a six-month qualifying period applies from 1 January 2027, down from two years, and anyone with six months’ service on that date gains protection immediately. The cap on the compensatory award is being removed at the same time.

If you are being pushed towards the door in late 2026 with under two years’ service, the calendar matters more than usual.

The US: at will, and the two numbers that follow from it

At-will employment means the dismissal itself is usually not the fight. Absent discrimination, retaliation, a contract or a public policy exception, an employer can end the relationship without cause.

So the negotiation moves to the severance agreement. And that is where the statute does give you time.

If you are 40 or older and the agreement asks you to waive age discrimination claims, the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act requires that the waiver be knowing and voluntary. Concretely:

• At least 21 days to consider it, or 45 days in a group reduction in force
• A 7-day revocation period after signing, which cannot be shortened or waived for any reason
• Written in plain language, and it must advise you to consult an attorney
• In group terminations, disclosure of the ages and job titles of employees selected and not selected

The consequence of getting this wrong falls on the employer. A waiver missing any required element is unenforceable as to age claims — and you keep the severance either way.

The practical upshot is that “we need this signed today” is not how the law expects the conversation to go for anyone over 40. Being told otherwise is itself worth remembering.

The US: what resigning does to unemployment

Unemployment insurance is run state by state, so the detail varies. The general shape does not.

Leaving voluntarily without good cause generally disqualifies you. Good cause is defined narrowly as a cause attributable to the employer, not a personal circumstance.

The exception most states recognise is where conditions were so difficult that a reasonable worker would have left — constructive discharge. Commonly cited examples include unsafe conditions the employer refused to remedy after notice, and a substantial reduction in pay or hours.

Which means that if you resign under pressure, whether you eat the disqualification depends on proving what the pressure was. Same problem as the UK, arrived at from the other direction.

What both sides come down to

Different statutes, same load-bearing fact.

To lift the section 111A protection, to show a waiver was not knowing and voluntary, to establish good cause attributable to the employer — what you need is what was said in the meeting. And the meeting produces no document.

It also has an unhelpful shape. It gets scheduled at short notice, it runs ten minutes, and the sentence that matters arrives without warning. By the time you register that this conversation needed keeping, that sentence is already behind you. It is the same structure we wrote about in Why hitting record is always too late.

TalkSafe was built for that gap. You set a word in advance, and when the word is spoken the recording starts. It works with the screen locked. The 30 seconds before the start are saved with the file, so the line you recognised a beat too late is still in there.

Keywords are not tied to a speaker. You can set what the other person is likely to say, not what you plan to say.

On whether recording the meeting is wise: a covert recording made by a participant may be admissible before a tribunal if relevant. Whether making it is misconduct is a separate question. In Phoenix House v Stockman the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that covert recording is not automatically gross misconduct, and that purpose matters — it distinguished the employee seeking to entrap an employer from the one keeping a record or guarding against misrepresentation. On those facts it mattered that covert recording was not listed in the employer’s disciplinary policy. The wider question of what your employer can prohibit is in Your employer’s no-recording rule may itself be illegal, and the country comparison is in Four countries, four answers to the same workplace question.

What this article leaves out

This covers the United States and the United Kingdom. We have not verified the position in Ireland, Canada, Australia or New Zealand for this particular question, and we would rather say so than pad the table.

Within the US, unemployment rules and the availability of state law claims differ by state, and this piece states only the general pattern.

In short

Being asked to resign is not itself unlawful. Sometimes it genuinely is the better exit for both sides.

The difficulty is that you are asked to decide at the moment you know least. You do not know whether the conversation is admissible, what clock started, or what you gave up by calling it a resignation.

So the two useful moves in that room are the same in both countries.

Do not sign in the meeting. Asking for time is reasonable and almost always granted — and if you are 40 or older in the US, the statute already says you get 21 days.

Get the label in writing. Dismissal, resignation, mutual agreement, redundancy: four words, four sets of consequences. While it stays a spoken conversation, there is room for it to become whichever word suits the employer.

And what supports both of those, in the end, is what was actually said that day.

General information, not legal advice. For a specific situation, speak to an employment solicitor or ACAS in the UK, or to an employment lawyer or your state labor agency in the US.