Redundancy Skills Matrix

Getafix

Hello,
My company has announced collective redundencies and we are all being divided up into groups so that we may be assessed via a skills matrix. My department has three levels, Junior, Intermediate and Senior.

I am in the intermediate group which consists of four people, three of whom have served six years and one of whom has server 2 years. Now, our skills matrix, does not have 'duration served' as an option, yet the senior group does? However we do have 'Time Keeping and Attendance' instead.

I have raised concerns about this but have been told that the company has decided not to consider 'time served' as part of our selection criteria since it could be construed as age discrimination. If this was the case then how can they justify it as a valid selection criteria for the seniors?

Any feedback welcome
g.

Debt_Free_Chick

There are no hard and fast rules stating what amounts to discrimination.

But, are all the Seniors roughly the same age? If so, then it would be easy to take account of "duration served" whilst not being discriminatory on the grounds of age - after all, if they are all aged 45 then age can't be a discriminatory factor.

If they are of different ages, then it's still not automatically discriminatory to ask for "duration served" - one would need to prove that this was the main reason for selection for redundancy in order to stand a chance of success under the discrimination rules.

If your group covers a range of ages, then the company are simply "playing safe" and ignoring duration served to avoid any possible discrimination issues. Or perhaps experience isn't a major factor in your role

Getafix

The seniors are not all the same age, I'd guess eqally spaced by about 5 years per person. Which is why company reasons for including this in their matrix seems odd.

My group is aged, 26, 32, 33, 34. So if they are saying that by including length of service in our group it would be discriminating against the youngest member, then could it not also be argued that by not allowing us to gain credit for service, they are discriminating against the older members?

If other department matrix's in the company include length of service for all levels then surely there would be some grounds for grumbling.

thx
g.

mark5

Do you want to be the one doing the grumbling when there are redundancies in the pipeline?

My employer has been making groups redundant for just over a year now and i think i will be going shortly but the workers who were kicking up a fuss all went pretty early.

Goodluck, Mark

bookduck

time sarved is age discrinatory, but the heading 'exprience' or skills is not

BigSteveLondon

If they do the process correctly, then 1 of your group has to be nominated as a rep for the group. Then speaking collectively - any part of the 'matrix' that is not representative of your group (or you dislike), can be changed.
I was a rep for my group and had this explained to me.

Getafix

Toots wrote: »

They will already have an idea of who they want to make redundant and why. They will make those people redundant by making them fit the criteria they have selected.

This is what I feel has happened in our case. 'Length of service' omitted and 'timekeeping' added to penalise one particular member and favour another.

BigSteveLondon wrote: »

If they do the process correctly, then 1 of your group has to be nominated as a rep for the group. Then speaking collectively - any part of the 'matrix' that is not representative of your group (or you dislike), can be changed.

Already been thorough this Steve, but the answer remains the same, it would be age discrimination. It's not when applied to the other group though, funny that. The simple answer to all of this is for them not to include length of service in anyone's matrix.

Kezza25_2

Getafix wrote: »

This is what I feel has happened in our case. 'Length of service' omitted and 'timekeeping' added to penalise one particular member and favour another.


Already been thorough this Steve, but the answer remains the same, it would be age discrimination. It's not when applied to the other group though, funny that. The simple answer to all of this is for them not to include length of service in anyone's matrix.

Sadly skills matrices are designed to keep the people they want to keep. You should be consulted about it's contents but they do not have to amend them, they just have to 'tick' the consulted box.

Years of experience is definitely age discrimination, they should be referring to the types of skills that they are looking to retain rather than the number of years.

Sorry to hear of your predicament