Where an organisation is restructuring a department and reducing head count, can the management structure the ringfencing such that substantively similar posts (in terms of the essential skill set, someone who could do one post could do the other) are in separate ring fences and staff are only in a single ring fence so are potentially barring staff from applying for jobs that they could successfuly be recruited to? In this particular case there are 70 staff and 40 posts. In some cases there are 10 staff ringfenced to a single post, in others 2 staff ringfenced to 3 posts (so both are pretty much guaranteed a post and the remaining post will go to external advertisement) but the job descriptions are very similar and many people who are a 70%+ fit on essential skills (the criteria for getting a post to mitigate redundancy) for the post in one ring fence will be similarly a good fit for the other.
This seems to be unsafe as it leave the employer open to complaints to tribunal for failing to properly mitigate redundancies.
Related resources
Replies (1)
Please login or register to join the discussion.
I would say that it's up to the individuals to challenge the process through consultation. I'm sure if it went to tribunal, the question would be asked whether it was challenged at the time and if not, the question would be why not.