The importance of planning work requirements to avoid or to minimise the need for redundancies; the benefits of establishing an agreed procedure for handling redundancies; and the need for fairness and objectivity when selecting members of the workforce for redundancy.

The principles of good practice apply to all employers regardless of size of organisation.  Small firms, in particular, may adopt a policy or agree a procedure that simply consists of an intention to consult individual employees, paying particular attention to ways of avoiding or minimising redundancy, and to adopting a fair and objective basis for redundancy selection. This will allow management (and employee representatives where appropriate) some flexibility in deciding the best course of action when a redundancy becomes imminent.

This is the model mission statement that all employers should ascribe to.

Normally a person's job will have disappeared; it is not a redundancy if the employer immediately engages a direct replacement. However, it is possible to make a person doing a particular type of work redundant while at the same time recruiting people with other skills. For instance an organisation may be expanding on one side of its work and running down another. It may find it has too many administrative staff and a shortage of care workers.

Employees being made redundant are entitled to receive the length of notice specified in their contract, or the statutory minimum, whichever is the greater.

One fair reason for dismissing an employee is that of redundancy.

Redundancy dismissals can be found to be unfair if proper consultation and selection procedures are not followed, inadequate warning of redundancy is given and if the employer fails to consider alternative employment for the employee.

A simple policy enshrined in the employee handbook can reap dividends in terms of defending an action for unfair selection for redundancy.

Redundancy Handling

The responsibilities of employers:

• Consultation
• Selection Criteria
• Offers of Alternative Work
• Giving Notice to Employees
• Redundancy Payments