How to Get Redundancy Right

As an employer, making some of your employees redundant is a legitimate reason for dismissal. The process must be handled in the correct manner, otherwise, you could find yourself in trouble with the employment tribunal.

To ensure it is a fair redundancy process, the process must involve the following:

Consulting your employees

 

This is the most important step out of all of them. It includes an early announcement to those who you are considering to select for redundancy. It is vital to let your employees know that they are entitled to a one on one meeting, in which the employee is able to express their concerns and even alternatives to redundancy, which may have not yet been considered. It is important for the employer to have this meeting with an open mind.

There is no legal/ specific timetable the employer must stick to for consultations if less than 20 people are being made redundant. However, this should ideally take place as soon as possible to allow time for all employees to make suggestions and pose ideas as to why they should not be made redundant. There should be preferably at least two meetings before the decision to terminate the employment is confirmed.

2. Reasonable selection pools.

Unless an entire department, team or role is being removed, a selection pool for redundancy will need to be identified, i.e. who is at risk of redundancy. From this pool, you will then choose who will be made redundant.  As the employer, you will have the choice as to how narrow or wide the pool is. So long as you are able to show that these pools are not motivated by trying to accomplish a certain outcome, tribunals will rarely interfere with the selection.

3. Reasonable selection criteria and scoring.

If there are a number of people in the selection pool, selection criteria need to be set to determine who should be made redundant from that pool. Typically the criteria will include things like attendance, disciplinary record, performance, skills, qualifications and length of service. This is a way to ensure the decision is made based on a fair and objective criterion. You may also give certain categories more weighting than others if as an employer you value that one category more than others.

It is vital that you consider whether the selection for redundancy was discriminatory, for example, absence on the grounds of a disability or pregnancy. Ideally, there should be two managers to evaluate each employee. This is to give a fair and unbiased score.

4. Considering alternative employment.

Conclusively, as the employer, steps should be taken to decipher whether there are other positions available to offer to your employees within the immediate business. Even if the offered position is considered to be beneath the employee that is soon to be made redundant, it is important to offer them the position and leave it up to them whether they accept or decline the offer.

What should I do next?

If you would like legal advice regarding the topic of redundancy, please complete the enquiry form or call us on 0161 249 5087 so we can help you to determine if you have a case and discuss your options.