An employee facing redundancy still has rights

The situations in which an employee’s position may become redundant are as follows:

• Job Redundancy - the business closes down;
• Place of Work Redundancy - the employee’s place of work closes down;
• Employee Redundancy - the employer’s requirements for employees to carry out work of a particular kind had ceased or diminished.

Even if there is a genuine case for redundancy, an employee may still bring a claim against his employer if his rights are breached during the redundancy process.

Probably the most important right is that the employer must follow a fair procedure for selecting an employee for redundancy, such as:

• giving the employee as much notice as reasonably possible that his position is at risk of redundancy;
• consulting the employee to see how the redundancy could be avoided;
• if there is more than one affected employee in the same or similar positions, pooling the employees together and apply (where possible) an objective selection criteria based on fair principles;

considering the employee for any suitable alternative position if available.

In addition, the statutory dismissal procedure applies to most redundancy dismissals so the employer must write to the employee requesting him to attend a meeting to consider the situation before any decision is taken.  The employee has the right to be accompanied by a colleague or a certified trade union representative.  Following the meeting, if the employer’s decision is to make the position redundant, the employee must be notified in writing and given the opportunity to appeal.

An employee is also entitled to receive the notice that is in his contract of employment. If there is no contract, an employee would be able to claim at least the statutory minimum period of notice. This depends on how long the employee has worked, and is:

• no notice during the first month;
• one week during the first two years;
• one week for each year he has worked after that, up to a maximum of 12 weeks.

An employee has a right to a statutory redundancy payment calculated by reference to age, length of service and weekly earnings up to a capped amount. The employee must have two years continuous employment by the expiry of the notice period to qualify for a statutory redundancy payment. In addition, some employers may pay a contractual or non-contractual redundancy payment.

An employee also has a right to take reasonable paid time off during working hours to look for new employment or make arrangements for future employment. 

Usually an employer will seek to settle any claims for having breached the employee’s rights by offering a compensation payment under a formal Compromise Agreement, which is only legally binding if the employee obtains independent advice from an accredited adviser, such as a solicitor.