A trainer with three decades of experience in motor trade sales, including a strong track record running a car brand’s distributorship, was fairly selected for redundancy when his training team’s work genuinely dried up.
“EATStands for Employment Appeal Tribunal. It hears appeals from employment tribunal decisions on points of law, not on the facts. It is not a way of simply asking for a second opinion on the outcome. upheld no Polkey reductionA principle that allows a tribunal to reduce your compensation if your employer could have dismissed you fairly even if they had followed the correct process. It is named after the House of Lords case...: signposting adverts did not satisfy the duty to help find alternative work.”
Your employer's duty during redundancyA dismissal that occurs when your employer no longer needs the work you do, either because the business is closing, a workplace is closing, or the requirement for employees to carry out that kind of w... is to actively help you find suitable alternative work, not just point you to the same adverts an outside candidate would see.
- Keep a record of what roles existed during your notice period and what active help, if any, you received.
- Passive signposting to public job listings doesn't satisfy your employer's legal duty to consider alternative employment.
- If your employer actively failed to help despite suitable roles being available, that can affect both the fairness finding and any reduction to your compensation.
The situation
A trainer with three decades of experience in motor trade sales, including a strong track record running a car brand's distributorship, was fairly selected for redundancy when his training team's work genuinely dried up. He didn't dispute that the redundancy situation was real or that he'd been fairly selected.
What he disputed was what happened next. During his notice periodThe period of time either party must give before ending the employment relationship. Your contract will usually set a notice period, but the law also provides a minimum statutory notice period based o..., several sales roles were available across the wider group. Rather than actively helping him apply for or move into one of them, HR simply pointed him to the same public job listings on the company website that any outside candidate could see.
What the tribunal found
The tribunal, and then the EAT on appeal, held that treating a long-serving, well-qualified employee no differently from an external applicant fell short of what fairness requires. An employer's duty to consider alternative employment during redundancy isn't satisfied by passively signposting adverts. It requires genuinely helping the employee explore and be considered for roles that might suit them.
Because the employer had, in effect, actively failed to help rather than simply done nothing, the tribunal declined to reduce his compensation for any chance he'd have been dismissed anyway (a "Polkey" reduction). Given his experience and track record, he would more likely than not have secured one of the available roles if the employer had properly engaged with the process.
For the full picture of what your employer has to get right during a redundancy process, see our guide on being made redundant.
Hendy Group Ltd v Kennedy. [2024] EAT 106. Employment Appeal Tribunal. 2024.