Failing to assist employees to find suitable alternative employment in a redundancy situation can make a dismissal unfair!

When an employee has at least two years’ service, and an employer is considering making them redundant then there is a duty to assist them to look for alternative employment within the firm in order for a dismissal to be fair. 

The duty to look for suitable alternative employment 

As part of a fair process, it is fundamental that an employer considers ways to avoid making redundancies or reduce the number of redundancies by considering suitable alternative employment. 

The Employment Appeals Tribunal case of Hendy Group Limited v Mr Kennedy

In the Employment Appeal Tribunal case of Hendy Group Limited v Kennedy [2024], it was found that proactive steps need to be taken to assist an employee looking for suitable alternative employment otherwise a dismissal for redundancy will be unfair.  It is not enough to just inform an employee that they can look for alternative employment. In this case, the dismissal was unfair as no meaningful assistance was provided to the employee to find alternative roles despite there being multiple vacancies available during Mr Kennedy’s notice period. 

Background Summary

Mr Kennedy was a trainer for its sales teams across Hendy Group Limited’s Training Academy and was made redundant in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. Mr Kennedy had a redundancy consultation meeting where he was told that he could apply for posts on the Employer’s intranet. However, no active steps were taken by Human Resources to help him in this search including suggestions of what posts he should apply for or any help with this. A week after being given notice, Mr Kennedy was also required to return his laptop so he did not have access to internal emails or to the intranet. He could only access jobs which the public could see on the employer’s website. Mr Kennedy did still apply for other roles but was not successful. 

Outcome

Whilst it was accepted that this was a genuine redundancy situation, the Employer’s procedure was found to be unfair in relation to considering suitable alternative employment. The Employment Tribunal found that:

“The central fact is that at the time there were multiple jobs available for Mr Kennedy, for which he was qualified, and which he wanted.  Ultimately, … the Respondent was actively blocking him from getting one. ”

The Employment Appeal Tribunal agreed that the redundancy was unfair because the employer had failed to consider suitable alternative employment and at the original hearing it was found that the Human Resources Department  “..took no step whatever to assist Mr Kennedy…”  It was considered that telling Mr Kennedy that “he could apply for posts open and advertised to the world” was not enough and therefore the dismissal was unfair.  

Suitable alternative employment is often not given enough active consideration in a redundancy consultation and this is a stark reminder that this should not be overlooked….

For more information on the contents on this article, please contact Philomena Price, Employment Law Director here. 

The contents of this article is a general guide only at the date of publication. It is not comprehensive, and it does not constitute legal advice. Specific legal advice should be sought in relation to the particular facts of a given situation.