Consultation period.

Eltonswig

There will be inevitable redundancies made at our company before Christmas.

An employee forum has been set up and in the latest meeting notes the estimated number of redundancies are detailed. 400+ over multiple offices.

They have stated that there will be a 30 day consultation period. I was under the impression that anything over 100 redundancies should be a 90 day consultation period. In a FAQ sheet the company have said that the 30 day period applies because each office is considered seperately and in no case are there over 100 redundancies from any one office.

Is this acceptable?

Thanks for you help!

buel

Hi there, im suffering some very dubious decisions regarding redundancies with my employer so today i rand Acas on 08457 474 747 and they were absolutely wonderful and could answer all my queries.
I strongly suggest you do this as it will help!
All the best-Buel

ianianian_2

Hi there - you're right - sort of.

I think its 30 days for upto 20 employees, then for 20+ employees they add an extra two weeks and more again for breaching the 90-100 mark.

I believe this stems from the HR1 form (have a look on line, my internet is playing up so i can't attach it!), so i'd google the form. This is an independent form and process, which sounds good, however the form uses the term 'establishment' which is not defined and so open for manipulation by your company i.e. it says 6 weeks for 20+ redundancies per establishment.

At my company a stream of a whole business was reduced by 50% which meant losing about 20 staff in a number of offices. The company stated that the term establishment would be defined as an office location. I'm assuming that is because it worked out best for the company and they didn't have to provide a full 90 days which would have been the case if they had reviewed the process on a business basis and not by location (in our case, the team sitting next to you share nothing in common but the kitchen, so in my opinion it should have been done by business stream).

Have a look for the HR1 form and see if you can find any more detail.

jazzyman01

The consultation period is 30 days if the number of posts to be made redundant is 20-99. 100+ requires 90 day consultation. However, if each of the businesses run as separate entities ie are accountable for revenue, costs etc then it is arguable that they will be deemed as independent and therefore can apply the 30 day rule if less than 99 posts to go.

Please note that the consultation period only applied to jobs that are to be lost in a particular place and not the total number employed at that place.