Redundancy, Restructure and Resizing

Speaker(s):

Neill Thomas, Thomas Mansford 
In 2004, together with Jonathan Mansfield, Neill founded ThomasMansfield LLP. The firm has grown to be one of the largest firms of solicitors in the United Kingdom exclusively specialising in employment law. Neill advises both employer and employee clients on day to day employment law issues including breach of contract, unlawful deductions from wages, termination agreements, unfair dismissal, restrictive covenants, TUPE, redundancy, discrimination, bullying, harassment and employment tribunal/civil court claims. He also drafts and reviews contracts of employment, directors service agreements, policies and procedures. Neill regularly advises senior individuals.
In addition to Employment Tribunal proceedings, Neill has been instructed on many High Court cases involving breach of contract and judicial review.

Kirsty Lewis

Kirsty carries out a wide range of contentious and non-contentious employment work. Kirsty advises both employer and employee clients on all aspects of employment law. She has considerable experience in Employment Tribunal work including cases involving breach of contract, unlawful deductions from wages, unfair dismissal, restrictive covenants, TUPE, redundancy, all types of discrimination, bullying, harassment. She also drafts and reviews contracts of employment, directors’ service agreements policies and procedures and advises Employers of all sizes on day to days aspects of employment law including managing sickness absence, performance management, redundancy and restructuring procedures, data protection issues, changes in terms and conditions, discrimination and harassment issues. Kirsty also advises on a regular basis on termination packages and compromise agreements.

Sian Horgan

Sian completed her training contract at a Legal 500 practice in Kent in September 2007. She carries out a wide range of contentious and non-contentious employment work, advising both employer and employee clients on employment law issues including wrongful/unfair dismissal, discrimination, bullying/harassment claims and termination agreements. She also drafts and reviews contracts of employment, directors’ service agreements and company policies and procedures including Equal Opportunities, Disciplinary /Grievance and anti bullying and harassment.

 

Event details: Rightsizing: downsizing a company’s workforce to the point where the number of employees remaining is ‘right’ for the current environment.

Rightsizing is an American term which grew popular a couple of years ago when words such as ‘downsizing’, ‘layoffs’ and ‘decruitment’ were considered too negative. Rightsizing is not a legal term which has prescribed procedures and rules but a term describing a corporate strategy and as such putting rightsizing into practice and balancing the needs of the business and the requirements of employment law can be problematic.

Redundancy: an employer has ceased or intends to cease to carry on business for the purposes of which the employee is employed either generally or at the employee’s workplace; or the requirements of the business for employees to do work of a particular kind have ceased or diminished (or are expected to do so) either generally or at the employee’s workplace.

Collective Redundancy: a dismissal which is not connected with the individual employee.

Redundancies can occur when rightsizing but often not as straight-forwardly as the above definition states. We will consider ‘bumping’ (moving one employee to make way for another), selection criteria and other aspects of the increasingly difficult procedures and ways to limiting Employment Tribunal claims.

Reorganisation: reorganisation of the workforce

Business reorganisations do not technically constitute redundancy however many of the same procedural considerations apply to reorganisations.

We will focus on the areas which we consider to be the most topical to provide an informative and interactive workshop to ensure you feel confident in dealing with the situations detailed above.

For more information:

• Email Michelle Grasty  

Contact phone number 01372 812773