Redundancy selection criteria matrix form

The very first thing that you must do is make a clear statement identifying the pool of employees from which the redundancies are to be sought, for example, the sales staff at head office, or the fork lift drivers at the warehouse.

You should consider whether any of the jobs are interchangeable and whether there are other groups of employees performing identical work.

Selection criteria for redundancy may include:

• some kind of measure of skills.
• qualifications.
• performance.
• attendance records.
• disciplinary records.

Note, length of service should only be used all other scores being equal.

The following criteria are considered unfair and can give rise to claims under Unfair Dismissal or the relevant discrimination laws:

• trade union reasons.
• carrying out duties relating to redundancy, as an elected representative of the employees.
• maternity grounds.
• sex, race or disability grounds.

From June 1999 an employee must have worked for that employer for two years before he or she can claim for unfair dismissal.

You should include selection criteria in your consultation.

Criteria should be as 'objective' and 'measurable' as possible. This means it should be fair, be based on facts that can be measured and not be affected by personal opinions.

You must use the same way of scoring criteria for all employees in the pool.

Agreed selection criteria scoring is useful as:

• it can be applied to everyone (although you might need to use different scoring for different groups of employees - for example, the engineering team might have a different scoring from the sales team).
• it can be easily explained to everyone.
• employees feel they're being treated fairly.
• it gives a clear, structured and consistent system for managing selection issues.
• it can be used at employment tribunals to defend an employer's decision.

You can have different levels of points according to the importance of each criteria ('weighting') for your organisation's needs.

For example, if it's agreed that attendance record is less important than performance, you can allow fewer points for this. So you could score attendance out of 5 points and performance out of 10.

You should have written evidence against each of the criteria.

In which jurisdiction can this form be used?
Great Britain & NI (United Kingdom)