Redundancy selection has to be based on objective criteria, not who your manager likes.
“Dismissals found unfair. No objective selection criteria, no consultationA process your employer is required to carry out before making significant decisions that affect you, most commonly redundancy. It must be genuine, meaning your employer must listen and consider what ..., no consideration of alternatives.”
A 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... can be genuine and still be unfair, because fairness is judged on the process used to select you, not only on whether the business need was real.
- You are entitled to know what selection criteria were used and to see how you scored against them.
- Criteria have to be capable of being checked objectively. A manager's personal view of who to keep is not enough.
- You should have had a genuine opportunity to comment on the criteria and the process before the decision was final, not after.
The situation
A company facing a drop in orders needed to cut its workforce. Rather than agreeing selection criteria or consulting anyone, departmental managers each drew up their own shortlist of who to keep, based on their personal view of who was "essential." No one outside management was told the redundancies were coming until the decisions were already made.
What the tribunal found
The Employment Appeal Tribunal set out what a fair redundancy process actually requires: as much warning as possible, consultation on the selection criteria rather than presenting them as a fait accompli, criteria that can be checked objectively rather than a manager's personal preference, fair application of those criteria, and consideration of whether the redundancy could be avoided altogether. None of that had happened, so the dismissals were unfair.
Williams and others v Compair Maxam Ltd. [1982] ICR 156. Employment Appeal Tribunal. 1982.