The legal definition of a redundancy is ‘the dismissal of workers as a result of the closure of a business or workplace, and/or the reduced requirement to undertake work of a particular kind’.
According to the law, the dismissal of an employee whose job is still required, but is given to an employee whose job is no longer required, still falls within the redundancy category. In such circumstances, it does not matter that the type of work for which there is a reduced requirement is not the work undertaken by the employee who is ultimately made redundant. This type of situation is commonly referred to as ‘bumping’, i.e. the potentially redundant employee ‘bumps’ another employee out and takes their place. This typically occurs when a supervisor or line manager is potentially at risk, but their subordinate’s role is not.
The important question; when should you consider ‘bumping’?
There is no simple answer to this, but factors to think about include:
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- Has the employee at risk suggested the employer considers bumping?
- Does the ‘at risk’ employee have the necessary skills/experience to undertake the subordinate’s role – would they perform it as effectively?
- What is the relative length of service of those involved?
- How long is it since the supervisor carried out the role of the subordinate?
- Would there be a significant drop in salary or loss of benefits?
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Would it require a significant change to other terms and conditions, such as location or working hours?
There will rarely be a right or wrong answer when it comes to deciding whether or not to ‘bump’. Providing the employer has given proper consideration to the issues above and can set out a reasoned justification on whether or not to allow bumping, it’s unlikely a Tribunal will interfere with that decision.
For further advice with these tricky aspects of redundancy, please speak to one of our consultants, who can provide training, template documents and on-site support as required.
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In our next feature, we’ll be looking at the extra protections afforded to pregnant employees and those on maternity leave, during the redundancy process.
Rad more on Bumping on this blog section
