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Christmas Closure  – Our office will be closed from the 22nd of December at 12pm and will reopen on the 2nd of January at 9am

Christmas Closure  – Our office will be closed from the 22nd of December at 12pm and will reopen on the 2nd of January at 9am

 

Redundancy Selection Pool and Criteria

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Redundancy Selection Pool and Criteria

The redundancy pooling and selection process is one of the most challenging aspects of a redundancy process and this is where employers get it wrong and where employment tribunals dealing with unfair dismissal claims examine the fairness of the employer’s decision making process.

Deciding on the selection pool

The redundancy selection pool is a group of employees from which one or more employees will be selected for redundancy. There are exceptions where only one employee performing a unique role is being made redundant, however, please take advice on this point.

The redundancy selection pool should include:

  • Employees doing the same or similar role who are at risk of redundancy

  • Employees with the same or similar skills in other roles who are at risk of redundancy

It is important to ensure all employees at risk of redundancy in these groups are included in the selection pool and must not discriminate against any particular group.

Defining the redundancy selection pool should be based on sound rationale.

Selecting the Employee from the Pool

It is good practice to create and use a selection criteria to help you choose which employees to make redundant.

The redundancy selection pool should include:

  • Standard of work and performance

  • Skills, qualifications or experience  

  • Attendance record, which must be accurate and not include absences relating to disability, pregnancy or maternity

  • Disciplinary record

The redundancy selection pool should include:

  • Age

  • Disability

  • Gender reassignment

  • Marriage or civil partnership status

  • Pregnancy or maternity leave

  • Race
  • Religion or belief

  • Sex

  • Sexual orientation

  • Family related leave – for example parental, paternity or adoption leave

This list is not exhaustive and give us a call for some free advice on the selection criteria.

Another important step is to consult with your employees or their representatives to identify and agree selection criteria.

It is a good idea to score employees against all the agreed selection criteria as this ensure that avoid relying on one criterion making it more objective and can lower the risk of discriminating against employees. Also, if possible, use more than one manager to score the individual.

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