The purpose of collective consultation is to find ways to:
- avoid or reduce redundancies
- reduce the impact of redundancy on affected employees
Consultation should include:
- open and honest conversations about the redundancy process
- considering other options with employees and their representatives
You should discuss:
- your proposed changes
- any proposals from employees or their representatives
- ways to avoid or reduce the redundancies
- how to reduce the effect of the redundancies
- how employees are selected for redundancy
Employees will often have good ideas that may help to avoid redundancies. You do not have to agree to their proposals. But you must seriously consider any proposals for avoiding or reducing redundancies. If you do not do this, employees could claim the redundancy process has been unfair.
It's important to document all discussions and the reasons for your decisions.
Find out more about individual consultation
Inform and consult trade union or employee representatives
When collective consultation is needed, by law you must inform and consult any recognised trade union. If there's no trade union, you must inform and consult employee representatives.
Employee representatives are existing employees who can speak on behalf of the employees they represent.
Electing employee representatives
To get employee representatives in place, you need to set up an election process.
There may already be an agreement that gives existing employee representatives the right to represent staff in redundancy situations. For example, an information and consultation agreement.
Employee representatives can be elected specifically for the consultation, but you may need to provide training for the role.
So that the election process is fair, you must make sure:
- employees who stand for election are affected by the redundancy when the election takes place
- affected employees are not stopped from standing for election
- affected employees are given the right to vote for employee representatives
- affected employees have enough votes – they must be able to vote for as many candidates as will represent their group of employees
- votes can be made secretly and counted accurately
- there are enough employee representatives elected to represent the interests of all affected employees
You should also consider how long employee representatives will be elected for. They must have enough time to complete consultation.
The law does not set out how many representatives must be elected. However, you should make sure there are enough representatives. This is so there's still representation if someone cannot attend a meeting, for example they're off sick.
If nobody is willing to be elected, you should consult with the affected employees directly. This should be a last resort.
Informing and consulting representatives
You must provide trade union or employee representatives with the following information in writing:
- why you need to make redundancies
- how many redundancies you're considering
- roles at risk of redundancy (in a 'selection pool')
- the total number of employees in the at risk roles at the establishment
- your current ideas for how to select employees for redundancy
- your planned timeframes
- how you'll calculate redundancy pay
- if you're using agency workers, how many, where they're working and the type of work they're doing
You should provide as much information as possible before beginning consultation. If you cannot provide everything, you must provide enough to allow consultation to start. You must provide the rest in enough time to have meaningful consultation.
Consultation includes:
- arranging regular meetings
- being as open as possible
- listening to views
- genuinely considering proposals from both sides
- considering how employees will be selected for redundancy
- getting support for affected employees
- discussing what should be included in redundancy packages
Representatives should:
- tell employees about the proposals and share information
- ask employees for their views, suggestions and questions
- talk to other representatives and work out a collective staff response
- meet with management and give feedback on the staff response
- engage in open discussions to solve problems and reach agreements
- tell employees the outcome of consultations
The rights of trade union and employee representatives
By law, trade union and employee representatives have the right to:
- reasonable paid time off for trade union duties
- reasonable time off for training
- reasonable access to employees and workplace facilities
An employer must not dismiss someone or cause them 'detriment' because they're a trade union or employee representative.
Detriment means someone experiences one or both of the following:
- being treated worse than before
- having their situation made worse
Examples of detriment could be:
- they experience bullying
- they experience harassment
- their employer turns down their training requests without good reason
- they are overlooked for promotions or development opportunities
- their employer reduces their hours without good reason
Find out more in the Acas Code of Practice on time off for trade union duties and activities.