Company legal redundancy requirements

When a company is making redundancies, there are number of minimum legal requirements, whatever the number of employees affected. The most important being they must consult, if they do not then almost any redundancy situation could be deemed unfair and could lead to the company being taken to an employee tribunal.

What are the legal requirements

The collective consultation rules (explained in Consultation Process) must be followed when dismissing larger groups of 20 people or more.

The whole point of consultation is that the situation is handled fairly and consistently, employers do not have to reach agreement with the employees, but the company should ensure that reasons for the redundancies are explained and that every attempt is made to mitigate job losses. The company must also:-

  • Notify the Redundancy Payment Service (RPS) about the proposed number of redundancies before the consultation process starts using an HR1 form (adhering to the timelines depending on the number of proposed redundancies)
  • Consult with trade union representatives (reps), or properly elect reps to consult with in group redundancies if no trade union is in place
  • Provide information about the redundancies, ensuring that there is enough time for the reps to feed this back to the employees and consider any responses, they must supply:-
    • Reasons for redundancies
    • The number of employees effected, where they work and the number in each category
    • The selection process for choosing employees for redundancy
    • How you will manage the redundancy process
    • How you will calculate employees redundancy payments
  • Respond to any questions in a transparent manner and consider any options proposed to mitigate redundancies by employees
  • Give any staff being made redundant notice of their agreed termination date
  • Issue redundancy notices once the consultation is complete and support colleagues by issuing any additional information post redundancies

If as an individual, you feel that your employer did not followed this process then you may have grounds to take your employer to an employment tribunal.

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