Was it fair to make you redundant?

Or were you unfairly dismissed or discriminated against?

You’ve lost your job because you’ve made redundant. Oh dear. But it’s not as simple as that. There is a possibility that you could make a claim for unfair dismissal or discrimination.

Did your employer select you fairly?

Here are some of the redundancy selection methods that are likely to be considered fair:

• Scoring matrix based on your appraisals, skills, qualifications, experience and disciplinary records
• Last in, first out (unless that is discriminatory, for example, selecting only young people)
• You volunteered (unless that is discriminatory because the option was only available to people of early retirement age, for example)

Here are some of the reasons that are likely to be considered unfair:

• Because of your gender, marital status, sexual orientation, race, disability, religion/belief, or age
• Due to your working pattern (such as part-time), or because you are on leave due to pregnancy, birth, maternity, paternity, parents or dependents
• Because you are on jury service, or taking part in lawful industrial action lasting 12 weeks or less
• Since you are a member (or not) of a trade union, due to your health and safety activities, or because you’re a trustee of the company pension scheme
• Due to exercising your statutory rights, or because you disclosed company wrongdoing a.k.a. whistleblowing

 Did your job become redundant because your employer needs to reduce their workforce?

There are a few situations where your employer doesn’t have to follow a selection process:

• The ENTIRE company is closing
• When they are closing PART of the company and making all the employees in that part of the company redundant
• When they are closing part of the company where you are the ONLY employee

Did your employer follow a fair process?

Here are some questions to help assess whether your employer followed a fair process:

• Was there a genuine need to make redundancies in your workplace?
• Did they follow the Acas code?
• Did your employer advise the workforce about possible redundancies in good time?
• Were you offered another job in the company, or asked to reapply for your own job?
• Did your employer carry out a redundancy selection process?
• Was the selection process fair?
• Were you told how selections would be made?
• Were you allowed to comment on the selection methods in advance?
• If your employer used a scoring process, were you told the score you needed to achieve to be safe from redundancy, and the score you actually achieved?
• Was the decision to select you fair?
• Were you given an opportunity to appeal?

What this means to you

If you think you have been selected for redundancy unfairly, you can appeal or make a claim for unfair dismissal or discrimination. We can help with that.

Need help?

For a FREE assessment of your claim, call 0808 168 7288 or fill in the contact form on the top right of this page.

We have already helped thousands of people to win millions of pounds in compensation.

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