Redundancy obligations expand
The Employment Rights Act will introduce a second threshold for collective consultation.
A wider duty to consult
The trigger for consultation will either be 20 or more employees at one establishment within 90 days, or where you are making employees redundant at more than one establishment, a higher number, which has not yet been determined.
The HR1 notification to the government will also be amended to reflect the new triggers.
Getting this right is critical. Currently, failure to comply can result in a protective award of up to 90 days’ pay per employee. Under the new rules, this will double to 180 days’ pay. This substantial increase makes full compliance with collective consultation obligations more important than ever.
Now is the time to assess
The new threshold will mean you will need to proactively assess all redundancies across your organisation. If you operate across more than one site you may have collectively consult on your proposals more frequently than is currently the case.
Consider how you will manage this and whether you will need to change your existing processes.
If you do not recognise a union, consider introducing employee representatives who you can consult with for these purposes.
