Dr John McMullen on restructuring, downsizing & workforce lay-offs
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An employer's first step when approaching a redundancy selection should be to identify the pool of employees from which those who are to be made redundant will be selected, as this will be considered by an employment tribunal when assessing the fairness of the dismissal. If an employer simply dismisses an employee without first considering the pool, the dismissal is likely to be unfair, regardless of the fair selection criteria applied.
As far as possible, objective selection criteria, precisely defined and capable of being applied in an independent way should be used when determining which employees are to be selected for redundancy. Employers will often take into consideration a number of factors, and the simultaneous application of these criteria is recommended. Employers may apply different weightings to each criterion, and adopt a tie-break provision in the event of equal totals. The important question is whether the selection for redundancy was one which a reasonable employer could have made, taking into account the size and administrative resources of the employer's
