- Advice and Guidance
- Redundancy and notice
- Redundancy
Redundancy
Key points
- Good communications and consultation between management and employees can help an organisation get through the redundancy process.
- Employees have the right not to be unfairly selected for redundancy.
- Employees may be entitled to a statutory redundancy payment and notice.
- Redundancies can happen when employees are dismissed because their job no longer exists, for example when:
- new technology makes a job unnecessary
- an employer needs to cut costs and reduce the number of staff
- the employer needs to close the business.
Although, an employee will need 2 years service for a redundancy payment, dismissal due to redundancy can happen at any point, the fairness of a dismissal may be challenged if an employee has at least one year's continuous service for employees in employment before 6th April 2012 or two years for employees starting employment on or after 6th April 2012, however if the redundancy dismissal was due to asserting a statutory right eg. requesting flexible working, then no fixed length of service is required.
Watch our video Breaking bad news at work: The role of the redundancy envoy
The video offers employers practical advice to help managers deal with the emotions, tensions and difficult decisions of downsizing.
It includes interviews with Adrian Wakeling, Acas senior guidance editor, and Dr Ian Ashman from the Institute for Research into Organisation, Work and Employment at the University of Central Lancashire's Business School. Dr Ashman studied the experiences of envoys, or tellers as they are also called, across the public and private sectors for Acas.
Breaking bad news at work - The role of the redundancy envoy transcript [35kb]
