Redundancy

Redundancy is a fact of economic life these days.

Whilst most redundancy situations are dealt with fairly by employers there are many that are not.

Why me is the first question that employees ask when being told they are being made redundant? When making redundancies employers must first decide the selection pool from which the redundant staff will be selected. The pool should include employees who perform the same or similar roles or employees with the same or similar skills in other areas. Did the employee choose the right employees to be in the selection pool? Did the employer deliberately exclude some employees from being in the selection pool?

The next stage of the redundancy process is then deciding which of those employees in the selection pool or pools should be made redundant. Good employers will use a selection matrix and use factors than can be objectively measured and justified such as performance ratings, skills, and experience. So, what criteria did your employer use? Were they objective or just based on personal preferences? Did the employer choose the criteria knowing full well that they would produce a predetermined outcome? 

Before making redundancies, the employer is legally obliged to look for ‘suitable alternative employment’ elsewhere in the organisation. What evidence is there that the employer as tried to find alternative roles? It’s also the case that some employers will use this part of the process as a way of avoiding paying you redundancy money by finding you another role, which may be at a lower grade or even in a different location. 

At The Advocate Partners we have dealt with literally thousands of redundancy situations over the last 40 years. Our years of experience enable us to tell almost immediately whether your selection for redundancy has been dealt with fairly or unfairly. If we think you’ve been dealt with unfairly then we can help you get your job back, secure an improved redundancy payment or even support you taking an unfair dismissal case to an Employment Tribunal.