Redeployment: What Employers Need to Know 

Written by Calvin Bowers
Last updated March 31, 2021

Redeployment is when a business or organisation aims to find current employees another position to avoid making them redundant. The employer will assess the transferrable skills of each staff member and then liaise with the recruiting manager within another area of the business to establish a case for workers’ redeployment.

As an Employer, Should I be Worried?

The risk associated with redeployment is that employers might not be able to find an alternative position for their employees, which might result in redundancy. This could especially happen when an area of the business experiences surplus staff. For instance, engineering and construction companies usually work on long-term tasks and projects and, when these come to an end, workers are transferred to other projects. However, a decrease or a change in the business’ activity might make it harder for employers to redeploy surplus staff.

Workplace Rights Regarding Redeployment

As an employer, it is crucial to take employment law into account when considering staff redeployment. In a redundancy situation, employers are legally obliged to consider suitable alternative employment for the staff who are facing redundancy. This consists of evaluating whether any of those employees could be redeployed into a different business area. Here are some essential steps that employers must take to meet this obligation:

  • Ensuring the employee is never made redundant and moves smoothly into the new role if they accept a suitable alternative employment offer.
  • Ensuring that the employee will be made redundant and is entitled to statutory, and possibly enhanced, redundancy pay, if they reasonably refuse a suitable alternative employment offer.

If an employer does not offer suitable alternative employment, employees facing redundancy have the legal right to claim unfair dismissal. On the other hand, if employees unreasonably refuse a suitable alternative employment offer, they will lose their redundancy rights.

As an employer, it is essential to understand what is deemed a reasonable offer of redeployment. For instance, asking your surplus staff to move to a different country or far away from home as an offer of redeployment seems unfair.

The pandemic’s economic impact has seen a large number of businesses make the difficult decision to make experienced employees redundant. You can read the dedicated page on our website to determine why you should jump on the chance to hire one of them.

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Last Updated: Monday June 6 2022
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