FAO: Operations Manager

Proposed Redundancies

A redundancy situation has arisen within the organisation due to a downturn in the volume of business. We anticipate that this will include 5 employee's from within your team. The following will assist you in the redundancy process:

Legal Requirements
We need to ensure compliance with the following legal requirements. If we do not there is a possibility of an employee applying to an employment tribunal for a protective award.
Consultation – You will need to carry out meaningful individual consultations with all affected employees over a 15 day consultation period. This includes two meetings in which you will discuss reasons for redundancy, the number of employees affected, how they will be selected and how redundancy payments will be calculated. The purpose of redundancy consultation is to allow employees and managers to share problems and to examine the options. This results in them working better together in the redundancy process and reduces uncertainty.
Legally we do not have to perform collective consultation as under 20 redundancies are to take place.
Fairly select employees – Employees need to be selected fairly for redundancy. According to Acas, 'The Criteria must be consistently applied and be objective, fair and consistent'. This can be achieved by using our criteria matrix which is based upon skills, work standard, attendance and disciplinary records. You will need to score employees on all of the criteria in the matrix.
Selection cannot be influenced by employee's protected characteristics. 'The following characteristics are protected characteristics – age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; sexual orientation' (Equality Act 2010)

Notice Periods – We need to provide affected employees with a notice period. The length of which is decided by years of service. As your team have been with us for more than 2 years they will require a weeks notice for each year of employment. Over 12 years service will give 12 weeks notice.
Redundancy Pay
As the employee's have been employed for more than two years they are entitled to redundancy pay. A weeks wage for every year of service needs to be given to 22 year olds and over and for 41 years and over a week and a half.
Redundancy pay is capped at 20 years' service and maximum of £475.00 for a week's wage.
Employee Appeal
Although there is not a legal requirement to offer the right to appeal redundancy, we offer the opportunity for the employee to appeal the decision. This is put in place to resolve a complaint at an early stage and demonstrate to an employment tribunal that we have been fair and followed procedures.
Code of Practice
The ACAS Code of Practice does not apply to redundancy situations, however ACAS have created a booklet 'Redundancy Handling', which may help you manage the process. Please find the booklet enclosed.

Fair dismissal
Redundancy is a fair reason to dismiss employees under the Employment Rights Act. We need to ensure the dismissals are addressed correctly. If procedures are not followed it can have an effect on our organisation and an employee. This could include the employee making a complaint, raising an employment tribunal case for unfair dismissal and the employee becoming distressed with the situation.
The criteria from which employees are selected should at all times be neutral and under no circumstances influenced by their protected characteristics. Affected employees should be warned and consulted. You should speak with the employee to let them know why they have been selected for redundancy and alternative employment should be offered where possible.

Stages to minimise the impact
Plan to avoid redundancies
Firstly we need to try to find a way to reduce or avoid redundancies. Unfortunately after looking at the options: stopping overtime, terminating agency contracts, offering sabbaticals or secondments, in this case the redundancies are still essential.
Voluntary redundancy
Please ask the employees whether they would like to apply for voluntary redundancy. I can forward you redundancy terms and application forms. Please send any completed forms back to me. Once voluntary redundancies have been accepted we will proceed with the compulsory redundancies.
We may decide a voluntary redundancy application is not suitable at this time.
Support for employees whose role is to be made redundant
Many emotions including shock and denial can run through an employee's head when they are told their role is to be made redundant. You have a responsibility to ensure they get the best possible support. A caring attitude will help to support employees at this delicate time.

Manage 'Survivor Syndrome' – IRS Employment Review (2009) found that 65% of employers surveyed reported that stress had increased among employees who have survived one or more redundancy programmes.
We can take steps to reduce the impact of survivor syndrome. These include conducting meetings with retained employees to discuss the implications of the redundancies, involve them in any change programmes and provide them with practice support.
Offer Redeployment
The redeployment process offers the employee whose role is to be made redundant another vacancy within the organisation instead of terminating their contract of employment. The employee must have the qualifications and skills for the role and be able to carry out required job duties after a reasonable amount of training (if needed).

Exit Interviews
Performing an exit interview is very important and should be carried out before the employee leaves. The meeting will enable employees to raise concerns, obtain feedback from the employee about the organisation and discuss outstanding projects that need to be handed over. This will help to make peace with the employee, transfer knowledge from the employee to the person taking over the workload and obtain valuable information to assess any improvements that need to be made.

We understand that redundancy is difficult for all members of a team. We will do our best to help you through this process.