Out of my depth with redundancy processes

[zubin]

Due to an internal restructure we have just had to put 7 of our team at risk of redundancy, there are 7 fte roles available although 2 are brand new roles with different skills sets so there is the potential that 2 could go - hope this makes sense so far! There is another role - different again to those at risk, that was kept out of the redundancy process, the person in this role is leaving (just to clarify if they weren't leaving they wouldn't have been put at risk) the organisation have externally advertised the post (advert went out before the risk of redundancy process started) interviews are on Monday. Somebody at risk has asked why this happened as they would have considered that role if they were unsuccessful in securing one of the other jobs, although this would have meant us managing for a minimum of 2 months without anybody in this role which would have been massively difficult to do. Are we going to be in massive problems and if so is there anything we can do to avoid it? Thanks in advance

Why 2 months? If you offer someone externally from this set of interviews by the time you've done that and they've worked their notice it's going to be a good 6 weeks or longer by the time they start. Whereas if you put the process on hold as soon as redundancy consultation started as you should have done, internal candidates could apply and presumably be available much quicker.

I would advise you to reopen the process to employees at risk of redundancy, give them a week then interview them next Monday. It's too late to cancel external candidates now but if any internal candidates are suitable, even if you prefer the external candidates, you should offer then at least a trial period.

If people are made redundant and there was a post that was vacant during their consultation period that they were precluded from applying for, you are very vulnerable legally.

The principle is to make every effort to avoid making redundancies by making sure you at least give them every opportunity to apply for internal vacancies.

It's also morally the right thing to do.

Everything flowery said.

Why on Earth consider hiring external candidates for roles that could suit people who would otherwise be made redundant? You will lose the loyalty of all your staff (including the ones you keep) if you go round doing stuff like that, and in no time you will have people resigning all over the place.

With just 7 people you could surely make the decisions and get on with the new roles quite quickly?