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There may be situations where making employees redundant is a necessary step. However, it is essential that all of the relevant procedures are followed to avoid any future disputes. Our HR Business Partners can offer practical advice that ensures you are able to implement a fair process.
Some reasons you may need outsourced HR advice regarding redundancy include:
No matter what your redundancy requirements are, our experienced HR Business Partners can help you to find a suitable resolution. We work closely with our employment law team to attend client sites in person or virtually.
We provide efficient advice to businesses of all sizes and who operate in a wide range of industries, including in relation to redundancy. Our CIPD qualified and highly trained HR Business Partners provide bespoke advice that will help you reach the most suitable outcome for your circumstances.
Our HR Business Partners can provide support with all redundancy related matters, including:
Don’t see what you need help with on this list? Our HR Business Partners have substantial expertise and are well positioned to advise on most issues that employers will have to deal with.
If you’re looking for outsourced HR advice on redundancy, get in touch with our experts today.
Contact us on 0131 270 7700, visit our offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow, East Lothian, Shetland or Orkney, or fill in our enquiry form to request a call back.
Although redundancy is one of the potentially fair reasons for dismissal, employers should be careful to ensure they carry out a fair process.
Principally this involves considering the appropriate pool of employees at risk, holding consultation meetings with affected employees, establishing objective selection criteria to select those to be made redundant, informing employees of the outcome, and considering alternatives to redundancy such as alternative employment.
A failure to adhere to the statutory requirements for collective consultation could result in an employee or group of employees being entitled to a protective award of up to 90 days’ gross pay each. A failure to handle the process fairly can give rise to various types of Tribunal claims and award.
Carrying out a redundancy consultation exercise can be a daunting prospect, however, our HR Business Partners are experienced in the redundancy consultation process. We can assist with the election of employee representatives, attending consultation meetings, providing procedural HR advice, minute taking, assisting with the selection criteria, and advising employees of the outcome.
After the redundancy selection process has been established, our HR Business Partners can proceed to advise you on structuring suitable redundancy packages.
We will work with you to agree on packages which suit the needs of your business, covering statutory redundancy pay, contractual redundancy pay, and any other renumeration for certain financial benefits. This is sometimes referred to as ‘redundancy compensation’.
During this stage, we can also advise on the inclusion of any restrictive covenants and post-termination restrictions, such as confidentiality agreements. These will ensure that your legal and commercial position is firmly protected.
When making redundancies, it is often sensible to offer employees settlement agreements to avoid the potential risk of employment claims. Our team can advise on creating settlement agreements and assist with settlement negotiations with employees where required.
Redundancy is only a viable option under the following grounds:
An employee could be made redundant if it can be shown that the work undertaken by them is no longer required. This could be for a number of reasons, including reduced demand across the board, or the skill the employee was originally hired for is not needed.
A new system or procedure may have been introduced in the workplace which has caused an employee’s job to be unnecessary.
Other employees may be capable of carrying out the job role which means the employee’s job is no longer required.
A team within a company may no longer be needed which means that individual employees could be made redundant.
There are strict legal requirements in place which employers must follow. It is therefore important that you have suitable policies in place which reflect this.
For instance, it will be necessary for you to explore all of the alternative options to redundancy (such as changing working hours and moving employees into new roles), to fairly select employees for redundancy, to provide proper notice, and to offer follow up options.
If you’re looking for outsourced HR advice on redundancy, get in touch with our experts today.
Contact us on 0131 270 7700, visit our offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow, East Lothian, Shetland or Orkney, or fill in our enquiry form to request a call back.
