Re-interview or matrix, allowed criteria?

Bluemeanie_2

Hello,

you all helped me out a while ago with a question about Fixed Term Contracts (FTC) for which I am very grateful.

The help you gave me, well the HR department has now figured this out too and is looking at the process to make redundancies. They are cutting my mangerial post from 3 to 2 of us, and our team (should be 22 posts but through natural wastage) 18 posts, down to 12 posts. 2 of the team will have less than a years service so we are looking at from 16 down to 12.

My question is, I am wondering what things they can take into account when selecting people for redundancy. Specifically:

Can they take sickness into account?
Does the criteria have to be objective? i.e. facts and figures, rather than your managers perception i.e. attitude etc?

Also, I work for the public sector circa 16k employees. I understand there are different rules (not sure if rules is the right way to describe it, maybe different processes?) when making different amounts of people redundant. Does this amount of people apply across the whole organisation? Or locally, i.e how many people in your dept? Or in my case just your post?
(hopefully that makes sense, I am struggling to describe what I mean)

Emmzi

yes they can take sickness into account

yes they can consider attitude altho they may call it something like motivation/ flexibility

wiser people than I will advise on consultation period variations with size of staff numbers etc.

Bluemeanie_2

Many thanks. My sick record etc is good. Was just sizing up the competition!

njm123

Yes they can take sickness into account and given you're in the public sector the Bradford scale will probably be used - which means lots of short sicknesses will be seen as worse than long periods(Whilst staying within for the Disability Discrimination Act.)

For selection they must try wherever possible to use objective criteria, precisely defined and capable of being applied in an independent way, when selecting employees for redundancy. In the public sector they'd get hammered if the couldn't prove they were objective - that doesn't mean a manager can't influence things though as performance is usally from the appraisals (s)he's done and the skills assessment will probably be done by them - unless like my company they maintain a skills matrix routinely that is in the open and effectively peer reviewed.

For example

attendance record
disciplinary record
skills or experience
standard of work performance
aptitude for work

There are different rules for making different numbers redundant but they apply at an establishment and are to do with the length of the consultantion period with an 'appropriate representative' on mitigating redundancies. If >20 redundancies means must be 30 days before first dismissal, >99 redundancies must be 90 days before first dismissal. But they can give you notice of termination and consult whilst you are under notice.

Gingernutty

Redundancies should be made on the strength of a number of criteria, sickness is one of them. If they are doing it right, then sickness, absenteeism, skills, training, 'flexibility' should all be part of the score sheet.

So yes, if you haven't had a chance to learn all about the job as you've only been there a short while, the training/skills score will be unfairly low.

Bluemeanie_2

Many thanks everybody.

Njm, I understand the info you have given and the literal numbers, but I need to know in what context they apply. But I am really struggling to phrase what I mean. I will try and word it better.

Does the amount being made redundant apply to the orgasation as a whole? i.e. there will be only 1 redanncy in my particular post, but as the council employs so many people, there is a good chance they will be making others redundant in another section etc.

So does the more than 20 employees apply to your job, or your organisation as a whole?

Does that make sense?

Thanks again.

njm123

It's not just you struggling the problem is that there is no clear statutory definition of what an 'establishment' is, just a lot of case law, so it's difficult to give a definitive answer.

Normally it would be taken as being within a site or department (ultimately under the same manager) but if an organisation is running more than one redundancy scheme at the same they would need to tread carefully and use the broadest possible view of what is an 'establishment' to treat them as one for consultation purposes.

If the council are only making people in your department redundant the consultantion period could be based on the number being made redundant in that department (from your figures they have to consult with you but no time frame is specified), if they have other redundancies planned within 90 days they are likely to consult for longer.

SarEl

Actually the law tends to err on the side of accepting a single employer as an estbalishment - it is up to the employer to prove otherwise. However the OP has made a logistical error in relation to the way that consultations are conducted in local authorities. Consultations are conducted with the unions, and notices are served on the unions. Thus, what generally happens is that the unions are served with notices that say, put simplistically, "we need to cut XXX jobs and these redundancies are likely to fall in Y and Z areas and involve these employees". These collective negotiations are effectively ongoing in most councils now - the notice to consult may have begun as much as six or more months previous to the actual redundancies, and if the employees don't happen to be in the union, then they may be unaware of anything much going on until the consultation period is well progressed. So yes there will almost certainly be 90 day consultation periods - but the chances are that those will have elapsed already in the collective nargaining process.

Also OP, you are assuming that people who have less than a years service will not be included in the redundancy exercise. Whilst it is true that they cannot claim unfair dismissal and so can be "disposed of", local authorities are amongst the least likely to do so! I would therefore not assume that they do not stand an equal chance of obtaining a job in the process.

Bluemeanie_2

Hi SarEl thank you for helping me again. I am in the union but haven't heard anything from them and our rep is off sick. Might go direct to the union office, as there have been a lot of redundancies lately!

I am not to worried about me being made redundant to be honest, as my tier is only cutting one post, it is the people I look after.

I agree with you that I would be very surprised if the council said, "you have less than a years service bye". As it seems so against everything else they do. But the big boss told them in an open meeting this was the case and it is a vicious circle. The two employees who have been told this are like "why bother" and have started doing minimum work and one is off sick. Thus reducing their chances of securing a position.

I am disgusted to be honest that the whole thing has been managed so badly. But that is another story!

SarEl

Undoubtedly length of service will be one of the criterai, so anyone with less than a years service would score poorly on that. But obviously they have now sealed their own fate - sickness absence and minimal effort won't help them in the other criteria!

If your union rep is off sick (and many areas in local authorities don't even have reps any more due to lack of volunteers) then you won't have known when this first went in to consultation. generally such things go into a Joint Negotiating Committee, and they may be in there for several months. Despite the fact that many union members think their unions don't do anything, I know for a fact that these JNC's can make big inroads into avoiding job losses, and certainly in so far as people are concerned - redundancies may happen but the people are often redeployed or retained in other work. That is no mean feat these days, although I suspect that the capacity to negotiate will become more limited in the next year or too as there simply won't be any way to juggle any more.