Is your employer playing fair?

Redundancy can be an extremely traumatic and distressing procedure to deal with. Often, an employee has no idea that they might become redundant, and it can come as a shock. Often, it is nothing to do with the employee’s work or ability to work, but simply that the employer can no longer afford to keep an employee on.

This could be because of the business moving, the business being restructured or dissolved, or if there are surplus employees within the business. It is important that an employer seeks independent advice from our lawyers, before making an employee redundant. This can protect the employee from facing unfair redundancy or their redundancy procedure not being carried out properly.

Sometimes, businesses offer voluntary redundancies to its employees if it is foreseen that it is inevitable that the business will be moving, down-sizing or dissolved. Most of the time, voluntary redundancy packages are extremely good, and provide an easy way for employees to leave the business with sufficient redundancy pay to keep them going until they find new employment.

Unfortunately, too often, businesses do not take proper precautions when facing financial difficulty, meaning employees are left with little compensation for being made redundant. This can lead to personal debt, and financial difficulty for the employees who have been made redundant.

When a business has surplus staff, the employers will identify a group of employees who may be made redundant. Some businesses work on a last in, first out policy, whilst others identify employees where the job role is not crucial to the business, or where the business can make substantial savings by removing this role from the business.

The group of employees identified, must be relevant to the reasons the business is required to make redundancies. For example, an employer cannot make a teacher redundant, if there are surplus canteen staff.

An employee has the right to challenge a proposition of redundancy, and this can sometimes result in an employment tribunal, if the employee feels they are being treated unfairly. Our experts often represent and advise employees in this situation, and are on hand to provide impartial advice on the best course of action to take.

Call our specialist team today if you are unsure about the terms of your redundancy. We can help you get the answers you deserve, and potentially claim for compensation if you have been unfairly made redundant.