Voluntary redundancy and consultations

Hi,

My partner works in a law firm as a solicitor and is within a pool of staff informed that their positions are at risk of redundancy.

Within my partner's "pool" of X staff, management have indicated that they intend to make 50% of that pool redundant.

It is a collective situation with just below 200 staff being informed that they are at risk.

For a period now they've been going through collective consultations and have been informed of the criteria that will be used for the scoring in the redundancy process.

After some protest, the company also informed staff that they would be able to apply for voluntary redundancy if they wished, as long as they applied before a specific deadline.

Several staff within my partner's pool have applied for voluntary redundancy, but acceptance of these applications hasn't been confirmed yet.

Our question is this, if the employer is genuinely looking to reduce staff numbers for a valid reason and has extended the offer of voluntary redundancy which has been applied for by enough staff to "fill" the numbers they wish to make redundant, is the employer obliged to accept these applications and inform the other staff that they are no longer at risk?

Our suspicion is that the company are actually using the process to target certain individuals for redundancy and that they will reject the applications for voluntary redundancy from those that they wish to retain. Surely if somebody volunteered for redundancy and this is rejected, would not somebody else within that same pool being forcibly made redundant have suitable grounds for a claim of unfair dismissal?

This question was raised with the HR department and their response was along the lines of "If we get as many applicants or more than we need, we may deny certain applications on the grounds of the structure/skill set for the whole of the remaining team". This seems extremely subjective and bears absolutely no resemblance to the "objective" criteria that has been discussed for the statutory redundancies.

Hi, welcome to the forum.

With regards to voluntary redundancy arrangements.

Employers often ask employees if they are willing to volunteer for redundancy during consultation and select those to be made redundant from a list.

Sometimes it is at a disadvantage for the employer as it is often the long serving employees who opt for voluntary redundancy as the redundancy package will be higher. Another disadvantage is the employer can end up with an imbalance in the skills and experience of remaining employees.

To avoid this imbalance, companies often have clause in the redundancy policy which maintains that it is the right of management to decide whether a particular employee should be allowed to leave.

When making compulsory redundnancies, employers should be using an objective selection criteria. This is often a skills matrix which is an analysis of the match between an individual’s skills and experience and the ongoing and future work needs of the company.

Therefore, if the voluntary redundnacy application was initially rejected as the company wanted to retain the skills, you may find that the company would avoid making those who are most skilled and experienced redundant as a result of the redundancy selection.

I'm sorry if this isn't the answer you were hoping for. Please let us know how it develops.