My Role Is at Risk of Redundancy – What Should I Do?

Being told that your role is at risk of redundancy can be frightening, particularly when you have little idea what is happening behind the scenes.

You may be called into a meeting, shown an organisation chart or selection criteria and told that a consultation process is beginning. You might hear phrases such as “business case”, “proposed structure”, “selection pool” and “objective scoring”.

And yet the question going through your mind is probably much simpler:

Have they already decided that I am going?

Sometimes they have a clear idea of the outcome they want. Sometimes they genuinely have several options under consideration. Often, the reality sits somewhere between the two.

The important point is that being placed at risk of redundancy does not automatically mean your employment is ending.

If you are currently at risk, one of the most valuable things you can do is get independent advice early enough to understand the process, the decisions being made and where you may need to challenge or influence them.

Redundancy should be about the role, not simply the person

A genuine redundancy situation can arise for several reasons. For example, an employer may need fewer employees doing a particular type of work, a workplace may close, or the business itself may cease or reduce certain activities.

But simply labelling something a “redundancy” does not automatically make the process fair.

Depending on the circumstances, questions may arise about:

• why your role has been selected;

• who else has been included or excluded from the selection pool;

• how any scoring criteria have been chosen and applied;

• whether consultation is genuinely meaningful;

• whether alternatives have properly been considered;

• whether suitable alternative employment exists; and

• whether factors such as absence, disability, family leave, age or other protected characteristics have affected the process.

This is where employees can find themselves at a disadvantage.

Your employer may have HR professionals, employment lawyers and senior managers discussing the restructuring before you are even told your role is at risk.

You are potentially encountering the process for the first time.

What has probably happened before your first redundancy meeting

This is something employees rarely get to see.

Before announcing a restructuring, an employer will often have undertaken considerable work internally.

There may have been discussions about headcount, organisational design, cost savings, reporting lines, future roles and which activities the business intends to retain.

HR may have been involved in reviewing the proposed approach. Employment lawyers may also have advised on aspects of the process.

Documents may have been drafted. Selection pools and criteria may have been discussed. Managers may have been briefed about what they can and cannot say.

Depending on the scale and circumstances of the proposed redundancies, collective consultation obligations may also apply.

That doesn’t necessarily mean your individual outcome has been predetermined. Employers are expected to consult meaningfully, and proposals should be capable of being influenced.

But it does mean that you may be entering a process that the organisation has been thinking about for considerably longer than you have.

That imbalance is one of the reasons independent support can be so valuable.

“They say the process is objective. How do I know?”

This is one of the most important questions in many redundancy situations.

Where employees are being selected from a group, employers will often use a scoring matrix containing criteria such as performance, skills, experience, qualifications, disciplinary records or attendance.

A spreadsheet can look objective.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the decisions behind it are.

Someone has decided which criteria to use. Someone has decided how much weight to give each criterion. Someone has decided what evidence supports each score.

The selection pool itself can also be important.

This is where our experience working from the employer side becomes particularly useful.

At TrustForce, we don’t just look at what an employer has written in a redundancy letter. We consider the decisions behind the documentation.

Does the rationale make sense?

Is the selection pool logical?

Are the criteria genuinely objective?

Does the scoring appear consistent with your employment history?

Are there discrepancies between what you have previously been told about your performance and what you are suddenly being told during redundancy?

Those questions can matter enormously.

Don’t assume you have to agree with everything you are told

Employees often enter redundancy meetings believing their role is simply to listen.

It isn’t.

Consultation is intended to be meaningful. Depending on your particular circumstances, there may be legitimate questions about the proposal, your selection, alternatives to redundancy or the evidence being relied upon.

The difficulty is knowing which questions matter in your particular case.

Challenging everything indiscriminately can be counterproductive. Saying nothing can be equally problematic.

This is why generic internet checklists only go so far.

The questions that matter for a senior manager whose position has disappeared following a restructure may be completely different from those affecting an employee selected from a pool of ten people using a scoring matrix.

Your strategy needs to reflect your situation.

Be careful about treating every meeting as “just a consultation”

One of the most common things we see is employees attending important meetings without appreciating their significance.

They may receive an invitation and think:

I’ll see what they have to say first.

That is understandable.

But what you say, what you don’t say, what you challenge and what you allow to go unchallenged can influence what happens next.

An employer will often be creating a written record of the process.

Meeting notes may be taken. Questions and responses may be documented. Follow-up correspondence may become part of the redundancy file.

If the process is later challenged, those documents can become important.

From the employer’s perspective, HR is often asking:

Can we demonstrate that we followed a fair process?

As the employee, you should also be thinking about whether the documentation accurately reflects what happened and whether your position is properly recorded.

What if I think they simply want me out?

Sometimes redundancy arrives after months of difficulty.

Perhaps you have recently raised concerns.

Perhaps your relationship with your manager has deteriorated.

Perhaps you have been absent through ill health.

Perhaps your performance has suddenly been questioned after years of positive reviews.

Or perhaps a restructure has appeared shortly after another workplace dispute.

None of those facts automatically means the redundancy is improper.

Equally, they shouldn’t necessarily be ignored.

This is where context matters.

A redundancy process cannot sensibly be assessed by looking at the redundancy letter alone. Sometimes the employment history immediately preceding the restructure is just as important.

At TrustForce, this is one of the areas we look at carefully: not just what is happening now, but what happened before the redundancy process started.

Should I accept a settlement agreement?

A settlement agreement is sometimes introduced during a redundancy process, although not every redundancy will involve one.

It may offer additional compensation in return for you agreeing to waive certain legal claims and usually accepting other contractual obligations.

Employees understandably focus on the headline payment.

But that is only one part of the agreement.

The circumstances leading to the offer, the potential strength of your position and the terms being requested can all affect whether an offer is reasonable.

There may also be matters such as notice pay, accrued holiday, bonus, benefits, restrictive covenants, confidentiality provisions, references and the wording of announcements to consider.

For a statutory settlement agreement to validly waive relevant statutory employment claims, you must receive advice from an appropriate independent adviser on the terms and effect of the agreement.

But there is an important distinction between receiving the legal advice necessary to sign an agreement and getting strategic support earlier in the redundancy process.

By the time an agreement reaches you, opportunities to influence the situation may already have passed.

Could challenging the process improve my outcome?

Potentially, yes. But no responsible adviser should promise that challenging redundancy will save your job or increase your settlement.

Every situation is different.

Sometimes the priority is retaining employment.

Sometimes it is challenging an unfair selection.

Sometimes an alternative role may provide the best outcome.

And sometimes the employment relationship has reached a point where the employee would prefer to leave, but wants to make sure they do so on appropriate terms.

Understanding what you actually want is therefore important.

Then you can assess the process and decide where your energy is best directed.

Why getting advice early matters

There is a pattern we see repeatedly.

Someone contacts us after several consultation meetings have already taken place.

They have answered questions without preparation.

They have accepted scoring they don’t agree with.

They have received documents but don’t know what is significant.

Or they have been offered a settlement agreement and are suddenly trying to work out whether the entire process has been fair.

We can still help in those circumstances.

But earlier is better.

Independent support gives you someone who can look at the situation without the emotion that inevitably comes with being told your livelihood may be at risk.

More importantly, it gives you someone who understands how the employer is likely to be approaching the process.

At TrustForce, our perspective comes from more than 20 years working on the employer side of HR.

We understand how restructures are planned, how consultation processes are documented, how selection exercises are constructed and what organisations consider when assessing employment risk.

That experience now sits on your side of the table.

You don’t have to navigate redundancy alone

Being placed at risk of redundancy does not mean you should immediately assume the worst.

But neither should you assume that because a process looks formal, it must therefore be fair.

The detail matters.

Your employment history matters.

The documentation matters.

And timing matters.

You don’t need to become an employment law expert or try to manage the entire process yourself. You need to understand what is happening, what deserves closer scrutiny and what your realistic options are before important opportunities pass.

That is exactly where having someone independent in your corner can make a difference.

Frequently asked questions

Does being “at risk” mean I have definitely been made redundant?

No. Being placed at risk normally means redundancy is proposed and a consultation process is taking place. The precise process will depend on the circumstances, including how many redundancies are proposed.

Can my employer choose me because I am the highest paid?

Redundancy selection and the fairness of any criteria depend on the circumstances. Cost may form part of wider business decisions, but employers still need to consider their legal obligations and avoid discriminatory or otherwise unfair selection practices. If you are concerned about why you have been selected, get advice on your specific situation.

Can I challenge my redundancy score?

You can raise concerns about scoring and ask questions about the evidence used. Whether there are grounds for a substantive challenge will depend on the criteria, evidence and circumstances. This is an area where reviewing the documentation before responding can be particularly valuable.

When should I contact TrustForce?

Ideally, as soon as you are told that your role is at risk — and particularly before important consultation meetings or responding to significant documentation. The earlier we understand what is happening, the more opportunity there may be to help you navigate it effectively.

How TrustForce can help

TrustForce provides confidential, independent support to employees facing redundancy and other difficult workplace situations.

With more than 20 years’ experience working from the employer side, we understand how these processes operate behind the scenes — and we use that experience to help you understand your position, prepare for important conversations and make informed decisions about what happens next.

If your role has been placed at risk and you are unsure whether the process is fair, you can contact TrustForce at support@trustforce.co.uk or visit www.trustforce.co.uk.

Getting support before the next important decision is made can put you in a much stronger position.