Consultations and redundancy question

[s2driveruk]

Quick question regarding a site closure in a global business and the role of a consultation process.

I am of the understanding that part of the formal (45 day in this case) consultation process is to determine if there are ways to reduce the number of redundancies through engagement with nominated representatives or identify alternatives.

However, if the company has already in advance of the process commencing, outlined its strategy and confirmed that none of the products or services which are created or serviced from that site are included, then hasn't this already pre-determined an outcome, leaving only one logical conclusion, e.g. everyone is out of a job?

Interested in the legalities of this and the sequencing. Feels like no point doing a consultation when there is nothing to discuss smile

Thanks

[parabolica]

s2driveruk said:

However, if the company has already in advance of the process commencing, outlined its strategy and confirmed that none of the products or services which are created or serviced from that site are included, then hasn't this already pre-determined an outcome, leaving only one logical conclusion, e.g. everyone is out of a job?

It is only logical that a company would have made this assessment before commencing the collective consultation process; you would not want to enter a consultation process on false premise giving the stress and confusion it naturally causes on a workforce.

The CCP is basically there to explain to employees why these decisions have been made, what (if any) alternative working arrangements are available for employees and what the redundancy process will be for all employees affected. Next stage would be to notify those employees affected (whether it's 1 or all), unless during the CCP there is some key, major reason as to why redundancy would not continue for some legal reason.

[RTB]

There are lots of things to discuss but none of those topics will include the decision to close the site and make redundancies. It's a consultation not a negotiation.

You should be told what the plan is, how that decision was reached and the likely impact on the employees at that site. You will then be told about any plans to mitigate that impact (if any exist) and what the broad process will be. HR will then set to work dealing with individual redundancy situations (notice period, redundancy payment Ts&Cs etc etc).

[clockworks]

I've been through the consultation process 4 times. The first time, I naievely thought it was a negotiation process, so I volunteered as the site rep. Very depressing, and I volunteered for redundancy.
Second time I'd only been in the job six months, and it was obvious that I'd be going.
Third time I stayed out of it, volunteered for redundancy as soon as I could.

Fourth time it was really about renegotiating hours and working practices, rather than job losses. We were told what our individual redundancy packages would be, but local manager said none of us could volunteer, and he had no intention of making anyone redundant. True to his word, anyone who didn't accept the new terms was redeployed. All very civilised.


In all these cases it was obvious from the beginning what the outcome would be in terms of numbers, the consultation just added an element of choice for the individuals