Redundancy and cutting hours question

Because of the down turn if I do not cut hours and look at staff redundancy my business will go bust with in the next few months. I have one full time member of staff and one part time. The part time at the moment does 3 full days of 9 hours and 2 days at 4 hours. What I need to do to carry on trading is look at making one member of staff redundent, and then cover for only 2 days with the other. Would I have to make both members of staff redundant and then re-offer the part time job, or could I make the full time member redundant and legally cut the part time members hours down to 2 days a week.

Thanks

Did you get any help with yuor query - I'm in the same position and wondered how you dealt with it.

phil

Manged to get the info. You can not just cut down the part timers hours, if they are not happy with the new hours offered they can ask for redundancy. What I did in the first consultancy with the staff was to inform them about the situation and what hours will be available with the cuts being made. I also asked for any ideas that could be of help with these hours that are left. For all I know they may of been happy to split them and do a day each and look to cover the rest of what they needed at another job. When I then went to the next consultancy I asked both members of staff if any of them would be interested in the new hours or if they had any ideas that may be of help in regards to the hours available. I was lucky as the part timer was looking to cut hours after Christmas anyway. They were a bit shorter then they wanted, but they were happy to stay on. As said if they would not of wanted to take the cut they could of opted for redundancy. The other member of staff understood the situation and took redundancy. You still have to be very careful with the way you word every thing to your staff. You have to be fair and in as much as you can not favour the part timer for the shorter hours it has to be a equally offered to both.

I hope this was helpful and things sort out for you.

Best of luck

I asked for any ideas that could be of help with these hours that are left. For all I know they may of been happy to split them and do a day each and look to cover the rest of what they needed at another job. When I then went to the next consultancy I asked both members of staff if any of them would be interested in the new hours or if they had any ideas that may be of help in regards to the hours available.

Best Attorney