Redundancy selection process - ensuring fairness

4th December 2008 The Employment Appeals Tribunal has recently given a decision confirming the correct, fair approach that employers should take in carrying out a redundancy selection process.The case is called E-Zec Medical transport Services v Gregory.

 In this case the employer drew up a selection criteria without any consultation with the affected staff, or any representative of the staff. It went on to give a manager the sole responsibility of marking the scores for each employee. There was no referral to any documentation or records held by the employer when assessing matters such as skills, aptitude, and experience of the affected employees. It was left to a manager to give his own scoring on these issues without any cross reference. The original Employment Tribunal hearing the case criticised the lack of consultation, the subjective marking, and the failure of the subsequent appeal process to rectify these failings.

In upholding the original Tribunal's decision, the Employment Appeals Tribunal concluded that:-

"it was an unfair process that fell outside the band of reasonable decisions for the key criteria to be left to one individual who was not able to support his marking by reference to any company documents such as performance appraisals, who had not spoken to any other manager concerning those marks and who had made no notes or given any indication as to how he had made this individual choice....(in making the claimant redundant)...."      

This case serves as a timely reminder that employers need to ensure that their redundancy selection procedures are fair, and include the opportunity for employees to consult over matters such as the selection criteria. It is also clear that any meeting which is described as a "consultation" meeting should be exactly that, and genuinely be used for consultation , rather than simply a meeting at which decisions already taken are communicated to an employee.

Furthermore, this case emphasises the need for employers to use, and cross refer and rely on other internal documentation and records (such as appraisal records) in any selection process.

If you need specific advice on the issues raised in this article then please contact us.