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REDUNDANCY ADVICE FOR EMPLOYERS

ADVICE SHEET FOR SMALL SCALE REDUNDANCIES

CONSULTATION

When you are proposing to make fewer than 20 employees redundant you are legally required to have meaningful individual consultation – and that’s with all affected staff, not just those who may be made redundant.

Unlike larger-scale redundancies, there is no fixed period of consultation required but normally a minimum of 14 days is deemed reasonable.

The consultation process needs to be enough to be meaningful dependent upon the particular situation. These meetings are not a set of negotiations, but they are not simply about telling your employees how things are going to be, either. There should be an opportunity for the employee(s) to come forward with ideas and/or alternative proposals to the redundancy.

You (or your managers) must meet each employee privately, at least once, listen to them and genuinely consider their suggestions (even if you don’t accept them). Don’t skip the one-to-ones by meeting with your staff as a group instead, as there is a risk any redundancies could be unfair and you may end up before an employment tribunal.

Benefits of meaningful individual consultation include:

  • A better chance of finding alternative jobs for staff.
  • Increased employee morale (they’ll feel included and see they have an input into the process).
  • Ideas and options can surface that you hadn’t considered/identified previously.
  • An opportunity for you to become aware of other relevant issues early on.

Examples of what you need to consult about include:

  • Informing the employee of the situation, what you intend to do about it, and why.
  • The criteria for the selection process.
  • Ways to avoid/minimise redundancies.
  • Listening to any concerns about the process (or any other relevant matters).
  • Assisting and arranging time off for employees (for example, updating CVs and looking for training).

You’re not legally required to consult with your employees as a group/collectively in small-scale redundancy situations, but double-check to see if your employee contracts, policies or union agreements require you to do so. Even if there isn’t a set requirement, you could always consult as a group if it will help. Remember, this has to be in addition to (not in place of) individual meaningful consultation.

SELECTION

When you are making an entire, specific group of staff redundant, you have already identified a clear criteria and pool for who you need to make redundant (for example, if a farm shop closes its bakery, it will no longer need any bakers).

Similarly, if it is just a single post (with no peers or similar or comparable post-holders) then no selection pool is necessary and the consultation process can run its course as above.

However, many employers wish to reduce staff/team numbers rather than remove a certain role completely (for example, if an estate agent has less business, it may not need as many staff to sell houses, handle admin or deal with customer enquiries).

In this case, you’ll need to set up selection criteria for the pool of staff to be considered for redundancy.

THE POOL

In many cases, the pool of staff to choose may seem obvious. However, where there is a business need, you may widen the pool to include staff with a lower skill-level, even though the redundancy might not directly affect them, to ensure you retain key staff for future growth.

THE CRITERIA

Once you identify a pool, decide how to fairly and objectively choose between them. Draw up a list of criteria as objective as possible. For example, Skills and experience. • Disciplinary records.
Standard of work
Skills and experience.
Disciplinary records.
Performance Reviews.

You don’t have to use all of the criteria, nor is the list exhaustive, but make sure you use more than one and ideally three to demonstrate your selection is fair and in line with business interests. Also, remember to consult with your employees about your choice of criteria. It may help to hold staff interviews to select the most appropriate person(s) for redundancy. Be careful here – interviews can be subjective and there is a risk your choice may be based on how you feel about a person, rather than using your selection criteria. If you do conduct interviews, you could consider running these as part of a wider more objective selection process.

If you are making more than one group of staff redundant, it may be appropriate to use different selection criteria for different groups (for example, using sales statistics as part of a selection criteria would be unique for sales staff and would not apply to security staff). Take care not to discriminate against anyone, – for example, exclude any absences or attendance issues in relation to disability, pregnancy or maternity.

At the final consultation meeting (at least 14 days from the initial one), the decision on redundancy can be confirmed to the employee(s) with a right of appeal offered.