Let's talk

Was a failure to consult at the initial stages of a possible redundancy fatal to the process.? In this case the claimant was amongst 16 people in the UK employed to recruit employees for a single client company; Goldman Sachs.

In the circumstances of the Covid epidemic the decision to reduce workforce because of reduced demand was perhaps not surprising but it was the lack of early stage consultations that was important .

Yes, held the Employment Appeal Tribunal in the case of ?Joseph de Bank Haycocks v ADP RPO UK Limited

The authorities considered by the EAT set out the following guiding principles:?

a. The employer will normally warn and consult either the employees affected or their representative;

b. A fair consultation occurs when proposals are at a formative stage and where adequate information and adequate time in which to respond is given along with conscientious consideration being given to the response.

c. Whether in collective or individual consultation, the purpose is to avoid dismissal or ameliorate the impact;

?d. A redundancy process must be viewed as a whole and an appeal may correct an earlier failing making the process as a whole reasonable;

?e. The ET’s consideration should be of the whole process, also considering the reason for dismissal, in deciding whether it is reasonable to dismiss;

?f. It is a question of fact and degree as to whether consultation is adequate and it is not automatically unfair that there is a lack of consultation in a particular respect.

g. Any particular aspect of consultation, such as the provision of scoring, is not essential to a fair process;

h. The use of a scoring system does not make a process fair automatically;?

i. The relevance or otherwise of individual scores will relate to the specific complaints raised in the case;

The first 3 points in the list are critical. As we now know the government subsequent to the outbreak of the Pandemic introduced Furlough leave and pay which would have resolved the issues for them but realistically that may not have been evident at the beginning of March 2020.

?

A full consultation might have led to the staff impacted making suggestions of their own

1.??? Temporary pay reduction.? I have actually encountered this in the last banking crisis.? The company needed to reduce the cost of its payroll by 20% and expected to make 20% of the payroll redundant.? The staff, post-consultation came back and made an offer to reduce pay across the workforce by 20%.? Objectives achieved for the employer and within a year they were able to restore full pay.

2.??? Voluntary lay off.

3.??? Job-sharing. Staff with care responsibilities might welcome that possibility.

The motto is really that if staff are invested in the decision making, whether through a union or not, the damage to morale of redundancies in the organisations can be mitigated.