Redundancy questions

[Wotchamacallit]

(Name change to protect job) International company, making cost-cutting and reducing staff. My department, 5 people in the UK, 5 people in the US at various locations. All have the same job description and roles & responsibilites but tasks vary due to their location - but all can and do step in for each other when needed.

Business has decided we've only got enough work for 7 people (laughable as we're overworked and actually employing a fixed-term contractor to assist in my office). US boss has decided that the US folk will stay (as their faces fit and they are on high profile projects) and the job losses will be in the UK.

Those informed that they are at risk of redundancy have been told that the selection criteria is based on "not enough work" and that they are not working on projects that will be going forward.

Although I am one of the fortunate people not at risk, I am still concerned (could be a second wave of job losses) and I'm not sure some of this is right:

1. My understanding is that "selection criteria" when 10 equivalent jobs reduce to 7 is that there should be some objective criteria - in the past at different employers it has been things like last-in, first-out, a points system based on length of service, performance reviews & sick time, and even making everyone interview for the positions.
2. It is rankling that we are still employing our FTC when any one of the 3 at risk folk could do the job - someone could get at least another 6 months paid employment while they work out their Plan B.

Ultimately, the job losses are going to happen, but I'm concerned that our US based boss is not fully appreciating UK law - over there they can sack anyone at any time for any reason - and our HR person doesn't appear to be experienced in this and hasn't answers to some of our questions. Have those affected got grounds for appeal based on improper selection criteria and/or continuing employment of an FTC despite "not enough work" for permanent staff?

I would agree that US people are often unaware at how different employment laws and protection can be in different countries (we're pretty easy, compared with many countries on mainland Europe.)

I can't remember all the criteria last time I was at risk, but it included:

• length of service
• formal qualifications
• job-related certifications
• any disciplinaires or formal warnings
• ratings in latest performance reviews

I think there was another couple of criteria, too.

There's information on the ACAS website about redundancy, and there's also a separate redundancy board here, but I don't know if there's much traffic there.

A few points-

It’s very poor practice to use length of service as it is potentially discriminatory on the grounds of age, as older workers are more likely to have long service. It also makes no business sense- you want to keep the best people not the ones who have been there longest.

Fixed term employees cannot be treated less favourably because of their fixed term status, ie you can’t dismiss them during an at risk situation just purely because they are fixed term. They should be included along with everyone else.

It’s not 10 jobs down to 7 as the company has decided to reduce capacity in the UK. US staff aren’t relevant to selection.

If people have been selected based on the fact that their projects are stopping, therefore they won’t be needed, whereas their colleagues’ projects are continuing, then there’s not necessarily any need for selection criteria, because then if you apply criteria you might end up bumping A (who has a full workload and is working on ongoing projects) out of their job in favour of B, whose post is actually redundant because their work area has ceased/diminished.

Thanks flowery, very helpful. I suspected there’s nothing we can do about uk folk going vs US as you can’t expect uk laws to be applied outside the uk. It just feels unfair, and I think I have a certain amount of survivors guilt.

It feels unfair though as we’re a global department with interchangeable roles - I’ve personally spent a few years working in the US. Particularly in that people are leaving because of decisions their bosses previously made about the projects they support, and not because of whether they are the best people to retain going forward. Other affected departments are doing a points based system to determine who goes, but I think how they decide who goes is down to each VP for each area.

It’s not about UK laws not applying, it’s about the business being allowed to make that decision. My advice would be the same if there were two UK offices, one in Newcastle the other in Plymouth, both doing the same thing, but the company decided to close/significantly reduce the Plymouth one, meaning those staff were all affected while the Newcastle staff were not. The Plymouth staff might think it’s unfair, but the business is allowed to make that decision, and redundancy is work ceasing or diminishing in a location. That “location” could be a country or just an area.

Without understanding more about the work involved it’s impossible to say whether selection criteria should have been used. However if there are some of you who are more valuable/competent than others, the company would likely want to keep those, so if keeping people on a projects basis didn’t achieve the desired outcome they probably would have used selection criteria instead. My point being the outcome probably would have been the same.

It's country specific, so effectively they have decided they don't need five people in the U.K., only two. Forget thr us staff.

Yes there should then be selection criteria, and there will be, but it's subjective, it can be about ability, performance, potential etc.

They they need to see if they can find the employees not staying another role. If not they can move to redundancy. The business is allowed to make this decision.

Thanks all. Agree 100% flowery that they would just pick whatever selection criteria that gave them the desired outcome.

All vacancies have been lost as part of this cost cutting process, so no alternative jobs within uk company.

Having been through this before, I thought I understood how it worked, but obviously not! The treatment of FTC as permanent staff is news to me. Anyway, at the end of the day it’s not personal, it’s business, I get that.

Contractors are not usually included in a redundancy process. They are usually managed separately anf their contract can be ended as per the terms of their agreement.

In some countries, like Germany, yes, the contractor would go, and a FTE put into the contractor role, if the skill set matched, but that's not U.K. law. I would assume they are considering the contractors role separately and may end that at the appropriate time in line with the agreement in place . I would not make any assumptions that role stays.

There could be a very simple plan to keep the contractor role to the end of the contract as they would need to pay anyway.to end it early and there is no cost saving. Putting a full time employee into it, then doing a second round of redundancies a few months later would make no sense.

Not renewing a fixed term contract when it comes to an end because there's not enough work is one thing OP, and that would usually be ok, but when reducing headcount of several people doing the same job, choosing to terminate fixed term employees early just because of their fixed term status would be unlawful. www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4587

that's interesting,I knew you didn't normally inc the contractors, I didn't know it was illegal here to signal them out first.

Either way it makes no logical sense to terminate a contractor, pay a sum towards the early contract termination, put a FTE in the role, then make them redundant from it a few months later. You'd just be paying twice.

You may as well end the contractor as per the contract.

IIRC that legislation was brought in to stop companies chaining Fixed Term Contract after Fixed Term Contract, because prior to that, it was advantageous to the employer as the rights of a FTC employee were lower. By bringing the rights of FTC employees in line with permanent employees for redundancy, etc., it removes the incentive for employers to keep staff on FTC.