Watch our short blog on making staff redundant for more detail
Have a clear rationale and selection process
Follow the correct procedures
Make sure you consult for the required amount of time
Your business may currently be closed, or operating at half measures with your employees on furlough and you are now planning to return to the way things were. But what if that isn’t possible? What if you can’t afford to bring all your employees back?
You could consider reducing hours (see our video on Contract Variation, link below) or you may need consider making staff redundant.
Redundancy situations are never pleasant for anyone and its really important that you get the process right – not only to protect yourself from tribunal, but also to reduce the distress to both your employees and you.
When making staff redundant the first thing to consider is your reasoning – perhaps you can predict your orders for the next year and know there’s not enough business, perhaps a part of your business has simply shut down and won’t be reopening or maybe you are considering a restructure now that you’ve been operating with less people for a while. Whatever the reason, make sure you document it so you can explain to your employees.
The next step in the process is to have a fair selection process. If you are making all your staff redundant, this is fairly straightforward, but if you are choosing a few employees you need to have a solid reason as to why you have chosen them and ensure no discrimination. You would usually use a selection matrix for this.
Once you have these two things in place, you must place all relevant employees in your redundancy pool and notify them their job is At Risk of redundancy, this is the start of the consultation process. You then need to invite each one to a formal consultation meeting to discuss further, and you may need another one or two formal meetings before ultimately making your decision.
Bear in mind that if you are making more than 20 people redundant your consultation process must last for at least 30 days, and if its more than 100 redundancies, 45 days.
Making staff redundant can be a complex process, so please do seek advice from a professional before taking action.
Do you have questions about making staff redundant?
Give us a call at CUBE HR, we’ll be happy to advise you and we have policies and templates available to meet every HR need.
Why not check out our other blog on a similar topic Contract Variation – 3 Things You Need to Know
You can also watch a range of videos on our YouTube channel
