How do you make somebody redundant?

It is only employees with over two years’ service who have the right to a redundancy payment.

When an employee has more than two years’ service if you feel that their role is redundant you must go through a very regulated process.

The two elements to making somebody redundant are

  1. There must be a genuine redundancy situation
  2. You must go through a fair process.

Whether there is a genuine redundancy situation will depend upon the specific facts. The test if particularly complex and legal advice is extremely important in any redundancy situation.

The process itself is very much concerned with consultation. An employer needs to demonstrate that they have kept an open mind about making who is made redundant at the start of the process. Who leaves the business by way of redundancy should never be a foregone conclusion.

The process broadly involves: –

  1. Informing staff that there is a risk of redundancy.
  2. Deciding upon which individuals are any risk of redundancy.
  3. Meeting with staff individually to consult with them about the redundancy situation and any possibly alternatives.
  4. An employer must then develop “selection criteria” to decide who remains within the business.

Selection criteria is a way of deciding who will be made redundant. The criteria must be fair, objective and non-discriminatory. What specific selection criteria you use will depend upon the specifics of the business.

Once you have applied the selection criteria each employee will have a specific score. Based upon this score you will then decide who will be made redundant.

An employee who has been made redundant will have the right of appeal.

If an employee believes that there was no genuine redundancy and or the process was flawed they will likely bring a claim of unfair dismissal.