Redundancy Toolkit

WELCOME TO OUR REDUNDANCY TOOLKIT

Thanks for choosing our Redundancy Toolkit to help you navigate through your redundancy planning and process. Before you dive in, watch our video which will give you a tour around the toolkit and hopefully make it easier for you to find exactly what you are looking for.

 

REDUNDANCY PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLANNING TOOL

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GUARDIAN'S AUTOMATED BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

If you need a little help finding the right resource for your stage of a redundancy process, GABI is here 24/7 to help you navigate around the Toolkit. Click the icon in the bottom right hand corner to start a conversation.

MAKING HR WORKABLE

THE 5 STAGES OF REDUNDANCY

There are five stages to every redundancy process but not every process is the same. For example, you will not need to go through an election of employee reps if you are making a stand alone role redundant. The good news is that we have created some handy checklists, summarising the steps that you should consider depending on your circumstances.  

OUR BLUEPRINT FOR REDUNDANCY

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SCHEDULE A HR LIFELINE

Whether you have got a bit stuck or want to just double check something with us, you’ve got those lifelines so don’t forget to use them!

RESOURCES LIBRARY

Here are the redundancy planning tools, letters, forms and memos to download and tailor to your own redundancy process.

CLICK ON THE IMAGES BELOW TO ACCESS THE RESOURCES
links to explainer videos underneath

1 PLANNING FOR REDUNDANCY

2 CONSULTING WITH YOUR WORKFORCE

3 REDUNDANCY SELECTION

4 CONSIDERING ALTERNATIVES TO REDUNDANCY

5 ACTIONING REDUNDANCIES

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If you’re looking for something specific that you can’t see here, GET IN TOUCH to see if we can help you find it or prepare something for you.

FAQs

Here are a selection of frequently asked questions on redundancy. 

Redundancy has a statutory definition in an employment law context. s. 139 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 states:

s.139 Redundancy

(1)For the purposes of this Act an employee who is dismissed shall be taken to be dismissed by reason of redundancy if the dismissal is wholly or mainly attributable to—

(a)the fact that his employer has ceased or intends to cease—

(i)to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was employed by him, or

(ii)to carry on that business in the place where the employee was so employed, or

(b)the fact that the requirements of that business—

(i)for employees to carry out work of a particular kind, or

(ii)for employees to carry out work of a particular kind in the place where the employee was employed by the employer,

have ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish.

A pool for selection is a group of employees carrying out interchangeable jobs from which you will selected people for redundancy.

You must consult with elected  employee representatives or trade union reps if you are proposing to make 20 or more people redundant in a 90 day period.

Suitable alternative employment is a role which you have available in your organisation that may be suitable for an employee at risk of redundancy. You have an obligation to offer such roles to potentially redundant employees and those employees have a right to a 4 week trial to determine whether it is suitable or not.

Redundant employees are entitled to all of the sums due under their contract on termination of their employment. If they have more than 2 years’ continuous service with you, they are also entitled to a statutory redundancy payment based on their age, length of service and a week’s gross pay (subject to a statutory cap).

Bumping is where you ‘bump’ an employee out of role that is not redundant to create a vacancy to retain the services of another employee who is at risk of redundancy. Bumping is not compulsory but it can be an effective way of retaining certain skills and experience within your business.

If there is a genuine redundancy situation and one of the employees in the pool for selection happens to be pregnant, they may be selected for redundancy, provided their selection can be objectively justified. It is automatically unfair and discriminatory to select someone for redundancy because of their pregnancy (or maternity leave). 

You can use length of service as one of your redundancy selection criteria as long as it is applied fairly.  Although you risk a claim of unlawful age discrimination if its inclusion cannot be objectively justified.

There is a minimum consultation period before the first redundancy takes effect of 30 days (if dismissing over 20 people in a 90 day period) or 45 days (if dismissing 100 or more people in a 90 day period), however there is no set timescale for how long the process should last. If you are making a small number of redundancies, the process could take a week. Alternatively, if you are making a lot of redundancies across your business, your process may take 90 days.

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