Robert works in client services at a fast-growing tech company. He’s been there four years. Until eighteen months ago he was one of the best – responsive, client-facing, reliable.
Then he stopped picking up the phone.
Calls go to voicemail. Emails take days. Clients are complaining. His manager has asked him to come into the office twice and both times Robert found a reason not to. He’s present on paper. He’s absent in every way that matters.
His manager has had enough. She wants him out. And she’s decided the cleanest way to do it is to make his role redundant.
The role still exists. That’s not redundancy.
What she actually has is a performance and capability issue and those require a completely different process. Using redundancy to avoid a difficult conversation isn’t a shortcut.
It’s an unfair dismissal claim waiting to happen.
✅ 3 THINGS ROBERT’S MANAGER NEEDS TO KNOW
1. Redundancy means the role no longer exists. If someone else will do Robert’s job after he leaves, it isn’t redundancy.
2. Capability and performance issues have their own process – informal conversations, formal warnings, support plans and a fair hearing before any decision is made.
3. Getting this wrong is expensive. An employee with two or more years’ service can claim unfair dismissal. And a fabricated redundancy is one of the clearest ways to lose.
At People Vision HR we help managers handle the situations they’ve been avoiding, properly. The right process, the right letters and the difficult conversation that needs to happen before Robert’s solicitor gets involved.
Because the shortcut always costs more than the process.