Responding to an unfair dismissal claim: the employer's Form F3

When a former employee lodges an unfair dismissal application (Form F2), the Fair Work Commission contacts you and you respond using Form F3. Here's what it asks and how to get it right.

The deadline: 7 days

As soon as the Commission receives the employee's application, it contacts you. You must respond within 7 days using Form F3 — the Employer's response to an unfair dismissal application. You also need to send (serve) a copy of your response on the employee and on their lawyer or paid agent, unless the Commission directs otherwise.

What the Form F3 asks you

• Your contact details, and those of any lawyer or paid agent acting for you.
• The name of any enterprise agreement or modern award that covered the employee.
• The employee's employment history and the date of dismissal.
• Details of any objection you have to the application.
• Why you dismissed the employee.
• Why you say the dismissal was fair, not unfair.
• Your response to what the employee says in their application.

The Commission asks employers to include only documents that are directly relevant to the claim — the letter of dismissal is the typical example — rather than everything on the personnel file.

Objections belong in the F3

If you say the employee can't bring the claim at all — for example because they hadn't served the minimum employment period, earned above the high income threshold, were made genuinely redundant, or lodged out of time — the F3 is where you say so. Our guide to jurisdictional objections explains each one.

What happens after you lodge

Most unfair dismissal claims go first to a conciliation — a voluntary, confidential online meeting run by a Commission staff member, usually between 2 and 5 weeks after the application is lodged. What you put in your F3 shapes that conversation, so a clear, well-organised response pays off early.

How WorkForceHelp helps

Upload the Form F2 you received and your own documents — the dismissal letter, warnings, HR notes. WorkForceHelp reads them, asks you a few questions about anything missing, and prepares:

• a completed Form F3, filled from the facts in your documents;
• a cover sheet summarising the matter; and
• a next-steps note — what's still needed, lodging and serving, and what comes after.

You review everything and lodge it yourself. See a sample F3 pack built from a fictional matter.

General information about the Fair Work Commission process, not legal advice about your matter. WorkForceHelp is not the Fair Work Commission and is not affiliated with it.