Redundancy Consultation

 

Managing redundancy consultation processes will depend on the number of employees who may be affected by the redundancy situation, whether there are collective consultation procedures in place with unions or whether employee representatives need to be elected.  Because of this the process for where less than 20 employees are at risk of redundancy is easier to manage than where there are more than 20 employees at risk of redundancy.

Employees are required by law to have provided to them certain specific pieces of information.  Proper consultation must take place where employees have a real opportunity to discuss options and suggest alternative ways of dealing with the proposed redundancy situation. 

Ultimately there may be no way of mitigating the redundancy situation and then in those circumstances the mitigation is about whether there are any other suitable alternative roles within the business that an at risk employees could do instead of being made redundant.

Where redundancy consultation is handled well at least employees feel that they have been managed in a fair way.  Where it is handled badly then businesses run the risk of unfair dismissal claims.  These usually arise around the criteria used for selection for redundancy. Therefore it is essential that robust and well thought through selection criteria are used to avoid the potential for claims.

Where organisations do not have redundancy policies and procedures in place the ACAS guidance on handling redundancies is a good place to start.