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Redundancy Advice

There may be situations where making employees redundant is a necessary step. However, it is essential that all of the relevant procedures are followed to avoid any future disputes. Our HR Business Partners can offer practical advice that ensures you are able to implement a fair process.

Some reasons you may need outsourced HR advice regarding redundancy include:

  • You require impartial advice from external professionals on how to correctly carry out redundancy procedures
  • You do not have a dedicated HR team to provide legal advice on redundancy and what is considered to be a fair process
  • Your current HR team does not have the capacity, or lack the specialist skills to handle challenging redundancy matters

No matter what your redundancy requirements are, our experienced HR Business Partners can help you to find a suitable resolution. We work closely with our employment law team to attend client sites in person or virtually.

Benefits of working with our HR Business Partners

  • Understand exactly what your obligations are and how to handle redundancy processes
  • Clarify all of the options that are likely to be available to your business with clear employer redundancy advice
  • Reduce the risk of employee disputes in response to redundancy
  • Avoid the potential for future HR problems by having robust procedures in place

We provide efficient advice to businesses of all sizes and who operate in a wide range of industries, including in relation to redundancy. Our CIPD qualified and highly trained HR Business Partners provide bespoke advice that will help you reach the most suitable outcome for your circumstances.

Here are just a few of the things we can help with:

Our HR Business Partners can provide support with all redundancy related matters, including:

Don’t see what you need help with on this list? Our HR Business Partners have substantial expertise and are well positioned to advise on most issues that employers will have to deal with.

Speak to our redundancy solicitors today

If you’re looking for outsourced HR advice on redundancy, get in touch with our experts today.

Contact us on 0131 270 7700, visit our offices in EdinburghGlasgowEast Lothian or Shetland or fill in our enquiry form at the bottom of the page to request a call back.

Our redundancy expertise

Advising on redundancy processes

Although redundancy is one of the potentially fair reasons for dismissal, employers should be careful to ensure they carry out a fair process.

Principally this involves considering the appropriate pool of employees at risk, holding consultation meetings with affected employees, establishing objective selection criteria to select those to be made redundant, informing employees of the outcome, and considering alternatives to redundancy such as alternative employment.

A failure to adhere to the statutory requirements for collective consultation could result in an employee or group of employees being entitled to a protective award of up to 90 days’ gross pay each. A failure to handle the process fairly can give rise to various types of Tribunal claims and award.

Carrying out a redundancy consultation exercise can be a daunting prospect, however, our HR Business Partners are experienced in the redundancy consultation process. We can assist with the election of employee representatives, attending consultation meetings, providing procedural HR advice, minute taking, assisting with the selection criteria, and advising employees of the outcome.

Creating redundancy packages

After the redundancy selection process has been established, our HR Business Partners can proceed to advise you on structuring suitable redundancy packages.

We will work with you to agree on packages which suit the needs of your business, covering statutory redundancy pay, contractual redundancy pay, and any other renumeration for certain financial benefits. This is sometimes referred to as ‘redundancy compensation’.

During this stage, we can also advise on the inclusion of any restrictive covenants and post-termination restrictions, such as confidentiality agreements. These will ensure that your legal and commercial position is firmly protected.

Settlement agreements for redundancy

When making redundancies, it is often sensible to offer employees settlement agreements to avoid the potential risk of employment claims. Our team can advise on creating settlement agreements and assist with settlement negotiations with employees where required.

What constitutes grounds for redundancy?

Redundancy is only a viable option under the following grounds:

An employee’s role is no longer required

An employee could be made redundant if it can be shown that the work undertaken by them is no longer required. This could be for a number of reasons, including reduced demand across the board, or the skill the employee was originally hired for is not needed.

New systems or processes are in place

A new system or procedure may have been introduced in the workplace which has caused an employee’s job to be unnecessary.

Other employees carry out the job role

Other employees may be capable of carrying out the job role which means the employee’s job is no longer required.

A team’s services are no longer needed

A team within a company may no longer be needed which means that individual employees could be made redundant.

What are employers’ responsibilities for redundancy?

There are strict legal requirements in place which employers must follow. It is therefore important that you have suitable policies in place which reflect this.

For instance, it will be necessary for you to explore all of the alternative options to redundancy (such as changing working hours and moving employees into new roles), to fairly select employees for redundancy, to provide proper notice, and to offer follow up options.

Why work with us?

  • Decades of specialist employment law and HR expertise for a wide range of clients
  • Strong skills in amicably resolving employment disputes
  • High level experience with Employment Tribunal claims
  • A complete service for all aspects of employment law and HR

Speak to our redundancy solicitors today

If you’re looking for outsourced HR advice on redundancy, get in touch with our experts today.

Contact us on 0131 270 7700, visit our offices in EdinburghGlasgowEast Lothian or Shetland or fill in our enquiry form at the bottom of the page to request a call back.