Many employers will be assessing their staffing needs over the coming year and for some, this may mean considering making redundancies. With large scale redundancy proposals hitting the headlines at the likes of Rolls Royce and JCB, employers may be wondering what steps are typically involved in a redundancy process.
To give you an insight into some of the key requirements, we have put together some fast facts about redundancy and the redundancy process below.
Fast Facts
Employers will usually need to:
- Have what in law is considered a genuine redundancy situation. For example, a store is being shut down or fewer people are required to do the job.
- Identify the appropriate selection pool. This is the group of employees that are at risk of being made redundant. Depending on the business reasons, an employer may be proposing to make all of those in the pool redundant, or only some of them.
- Fairly select who will be retained from the selection pool, unless the employer is proposing to make all employees in the selection pool redundant. Selection is often done using a skills matrix, this involves you identifying selection criteria and scoring employees on their performance in these areas.
- Look for alternative employment. A failure to do so can make a redundancy dismissal unfair.
- Warn and meaningfully consult employees who may be affected by the proposed redundancies before any decision to dismiss is made. This is irrespective of the size of your business. It’s important to bear in mind that if an employer is proposing to make 20 or more redundancies within a 90-day period there are additional collective consultation obligations that will need to be met.
- Pay redundancy pay to those employees who are entitled to it.
Redundancy can be a tricky area for employers, so if at any point you are considering making redundancies in your organisation you should seek advice from Kingfisher Professional Services Ltd on your circumstances before taking action.
If you don’t have any work for an employee/employees, it’s worth bearing in mind that there is help available for employers in the form of the government furlough scheme which has now been extended until November (although there will be some changes to the scheme from August onwards – the details of which are expected shortly). For further information regarding the furlough scheme, including advice on entering into the necessary furlough agreement with an employee, please do not hesitate to contact Kingfisher Professional Services Ltd as we are happy to help.