Redundancy - not genuine, not reasonable?

[LegalBugle]

Hello there,

I have been placed at risk of redundancy. I'm expecting to be given the formal dismissal notice this afternoon.

I have been placed into a pool of people that do not do similar work to me. My day-to-day job performance is measured in a different way to the rest of my pool. As a result, the redundancy scoring process used for everyone else in the pool makes me look bad, and on that basis I am being made redundant.

I work in a globally deployable team of about 10 people. The company is actively recruiting for other people to join that team doing similar work to what I already do - albeit in the US, so technically a different legal entity/payroll. But all the same, the company is recruiting for people of my skillset and at the same time saying the business is declining and have to cull people.

I am wondering if there is anything I can do as part of the appeal process to show that my redundancy is not genuine/is unfair. I have tried looking online but it is a little confusing.

Thanks

[ULA]

Sorry this may be a bit late for your meeting.

Do you and the other people in the pool have interchangeable work responsibilities since pool does not need to be limited to employees doing the same or similar work. If an employee or employees can easily carry out the duties of a different role then not considering them in the pool would make it too restrictive.

Have you had a chance to query and ask questions about your scoring if not then I suggest that you do so at the meeting and get an explanation as to the scores that were given to you.

Are there any other staff members in this globally deployable team that are based in the UK, if there are then you need to establish why they have not been put in the selection pool.

if you are the only person in the UK doing this role then it would be worth trying to find out why your position is being made redundant whilst they are recruiting in the US for the same role.

These are my immediate thoughts.

[LegalBugle]

Thanks very much. The meeting today went as expected so I am now formally on notice with an end date 10 weeks from now (1 Oct).

I have a few sponsors in the business and we have pointed out that I sit in this unique role. We are now pushing the point that my job is not interchangeable with others in my pool. So far, the company has basically said they are lumping me in with this other group of 100+ people because on the HR system we all show up as part of the same team. We have already raised with them that the reason I show up in that team is due to a limitation in the company HR system and does not reflect the work I actually do.

So they have created a pool based on my "practice area" as determined by an HR computer system that is broken for me. It is also worth mentioning that there are other specialist teams like mine whose members are also placed into this practice area/pool. Not saying they should treat me as a pool of one, but at least those of us in specialist sister teams should not be in a pool with people who have dissimilar and non-interchangeable roles.

I've been able to get more information on the scoring since my initial consultation in early July. The main areas that let me down were past performance and billable hours. We have presented new information that shows my global team's performance reviews follow a different (and considerably harsher) process to the rest of the pool, and that my global team is not directly measured on billable hours as a performance metric. All I've heard back is the same response i.e. we've put you in this pool so tough luck if it makes you look bad.

Bizarrely, in our "impact of loss" scoring area I scored a 10/10. That means, based on the scoring description, that me leaving the business would have a critical impact on the business from an expertise, relationship, financial performance and collaboration perspective. If nothing else, then to me it is incongruous to argue an employee's performance record is not good enough to keep them in the business while at the same time arguing that them leaving the business would create a critical gap.

Also, my performance for the last six months has been stellar - really good evaluations, hitting or exceeding every metric I should be achieving, working on projects that the company say are what they need the business to do more of to realise its strategy. But they are looking at historical evidence and largely ignoring my performance over the last six months. It seems perverse to me that they can look at my performance from a long time ago, decide that it's not good enough based on the business situation right now, and then let me go - even when I am performing very highly right now.

I don't know if it is relevant but I also had time off from work due to my dad dying (this site helped me with an executor/power of attorney question I had back when that was happening). This was partially but not fully reflected in my performance review for that year. I feel this is unfair because essentially if my dad did not die of cancer then I would have been at work another 2-3 months doing things to get a higher performance review.

I suspect that when I ask why they are actively hiring in the US for the same role they're making redundant in the UK, they will tell me that the US is a separate legal entity and therefore it's not relevant. I will still ask but just wondering if there's anything I can really do if they say that.

I am really not sure what I can do. At the moment it feels like everybody knows the system used by the company is broken, but if the company "admit it" by revoking my redundancy they might cause themselves a major headache.

Thanks.

[ULA]

I'll cover off the US first, if they are a separate legal entity and they have autonomy over their recruitment and staff management, then I think that will be a difficult point to argue.

To me and I am not a lawyer, it sounds like they should have created more than one pool which is perfectly acceptable in a redundancy situation, rather than put dissimilar roles into one pool. That is highlighted by the fact that the selection criteria matrix used to score you and I presume the other specialist group affected, does not "fit" with the role you carry out or the metrics used to assess your performance on a day to day basis.

When you say they are looking at performance a "long time ago" how far back are they going? If your performance in the periods either side of any time off you took whilst you father was ill were "good" performance periods, there potentially should have been some factoring to reduce the effect.

Just wondering whether you should raise the potential issue of the way in which the HR system has classified you and the other specialist group formally in writing and it is at least on record.

Just as a matter of interest how long have you been employed at the company?

[LegalBugle]

Thanks. I've been employed there for over 7 years. They are looking at my performance in 2018-2019 inclusive. They're also excluding any feedback from 2020, where I've been scored very highly including on my half-year performance review.

[ULA]

Thanks for the information and confirming length of service, I was just wanting to confirm you have more than 2 years service.

In terms of performance I would suggest that looking at the last 2 years, gives a good time period to review someone performance. Certainly if you have targets or regular performance measurements then I would suggest the company could take these into account up to the most recent point i.e. if they were monthly or quarterly then performance for 2020 up to the last month's or quarter's information.

[LegalBugle]

Thank you. They have looked at 2018-2019 performance and excluded all of 2020's performance - so even though I have very high performance ratings for this year, they essentially don't count for anything. I get that the process started a couple of months ago and they can't use the latest information about me, but this still seems unreasonable.

[LegalBugle]

Hi, quick follow-up question on this: are employers able to forbid me from recording meetings on the redundancy/appeal process? My understanding is that I am legally allowed to. I had an appeal call with my employer today and the first thing they said (without prompting) is that they would only continue the meeting if the call was not being recorded.

Thanks

[ULA]

Neither an employee, nor an employer, has the right to record a meeting – unless both parties agree to the recording.

It depends at what stage of the redundancy process you are at for the meeting you are attending but if it is the final meeting then you will have the right to be accompanied and if that is so, then this person is able to take notes for you.