Managing Redundancies

This may seem obvious but redundancy in an employment setting has a strict legal definition which is:

. the employer ceases to carry on the business in which the employee was employed; the employer ceases to carry on that business in the place where the employee was employed;
. the needs of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind cease or diminish; or
. the needs of the business for employees to carry out work of a particular kind in the place where the employee was employed cease or diminish.

You’ll notice that what’s missing from that list is “Someone’s not very good at their job”!

We get lots and lots of calls from clients around “X isn’t very good so we’re thinking of making them redundant” which just isn’t appropriate. If someone is under-performing then you need to follow a performance management approach or, you can consider having a protected conversation, but redundancy isn’t the way to go.

The redundancy process is complicated and designed to address the scenarios listed above. If you try to use it as a way to manage out someone who is performing poorly, you’re likely to come unstuck very quickly and find yourself in a very difficult position.

If you’re reading this question in a redundancy situation then it’s possible that you’ve made a start with a redundancy process and have got some push back from employees and you’re now unsure how to move forward.

Equally, it could be that there’s been something happen in the past that you’re not sure you dealt with properly and you’re now concerned that it may come to bite you when you start the redundancy process.

Whatever the situation, tell us about it, and we’ll help you to find a way forward.

At a basic level, we can provide you with a full written process, scripts, documentation and be at the end of the phone to answer your questions. Ideal for peace of mind at minimum cost. In addition, we can also be onsite for the meetings and support you in defining and applying your selection criteria (at extra cost).

Alternatively, you can outsource the entire redundancy process to us. You will still be responsible for deciding who to make redundant, but we’ll conduct all the staff meetings, work with you to define selection criteria, create all documentation and letters, and support your moving forward. Importantly, we will manage all remaining staff to avoid ‘survivor syndrome’.

This option is ideal if the reason for redundancy is a business change; while we manage all redundancies, your management team can focus on looking to the future.

As a first step, we’ll ask you to complete a questionnaire that gives us some basic information about the redundancies you are considering. We’ll then arrange an initial telephone consultation with you to discuss your situation in more detail and the level of support you require.

When it comes to the redundancy process the area that is most time consuming is the planning. If you’re using our redundancy support service then we’ll make sure that you’ve considered all of the appropriate things before you get started and we’ll make sure that you have a solid business case as to why it is that you are considering redundancy.

We can save you time by completing the documentation on your behalf, running the calculations for you to approve and even conduct the meetings for you. We’ll just need to make sure that you’re available to answer any specific questions that come up and we’d encourage you to attend the final meetings as employees appreciate hearing from their manager directly what the outcome is.

When it comes to redundancy you should get professional guidance and obviously we’d like you to get that from us. There is a strict process that you need to follow, you need to get the documentation right and there are lots of legal complications that can crop up.

There are some areas of HR where the risk of getting it wrong is low but redundancy isn’t one of them. You should seek professional guidance on this.