How To Manage Redundancy

Managing the redundancy procedure is crucial and business owners and directors need to be fully aware of all aspects of managing the redundancy process.

Fresh Business Thinking spoke with Simon Collingridge, an Employment Solicitor at Rickerbys LLP and asked for his tips and advice for managing the redundancy process.

In these challenging times many businesses are being forced to consider redundancy as a means of ensuring their viability in the marketplace. The repercussions of getting the...

...redundancy procedure wrong can be wide reaching, including the spectre of unfair dismissal claims as well as damaging loss of morale within the remaining workforce.

The aspect of the process that employers most often get wrong is the legal requirement to engage in fair consultation about the proposed redundancies.
For a redundancy dismissal to be fair, the employer must warn employees of the possibility of redundancy. The employer must then also consult individually with them before reaching any firm decision regarding their dismissal. A procedural failure does not automatically lead to a finding of unfair dismissal unless the minimum statutory dismissal procedures are not complied with. Nevertheless, an Employment Tribunal will look at all the circumstances to decide if the employer has acted reasonably in dismissing the employee.

Fair consultation usually means consultation whilst the proposals are still at a formative stage and requires adequate information to be provided to the employees on which they can respond. The employees also need to be provided with adequate time to respond. There should then be proper consideration of the points raised by the employees, rather than their responses being simply rejected or passed over.

The matters that should be discussed... continued on page two >

 

 

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