If you’re in the pool for redundancy, your employer can either: (a) make everyone in the pool redundant and ask you to apply for new jobs or (b) decide on a fair way to choose people from the pool.
If your employer asks you to apply for new jobs, you should have a chance to apply even if the jobs are different from what you were doing before. If your employer decides on another way to choose people from the pool it has to be based on something they can actually measure, such as: (a) your disciplinary record (b) your timekeeping (c) length of service (d) performance, if they can show how they are measuring it.
Your employer should devise a proper selection matrix and give you a score based on one or more measurements, then choose the people with the lowest scores for redundancy. Including some things can be discriminatory so employers have to be very careful with how they approach this. They should also: (a) tell you in advance how they will choose and score you (b) score everyone in the pool using the same method (c) show you your scores (but they don’t have to show you everyone else’s scores) (d) only choose the people with the lowest scores for redundancy.
You should definitely contact us for expert redundancy advice if your employer hasn’t followed these rules because you might be able to challenge your selection. If you don’t think the rules are fair, you should ask your employer for an explanation. If they’ve followed the rules and can explain their scores it can be hard to challenge them, even if your scores feel unfair.
Whether or not your redundancy is unfair, it’s always worth preparing for life after redundancy and we can advise to make sure you get all your pay and rights.