Round #975

We are restructuring and one of three identical roles is no longer needed. How do we decide which employees are in the selection pool for redundancy?

In a redundancy situation where you have three identical roles and only need two, **the selection pool should include all employees who are performing the same or very similar roles that are at risk**. Here’s how you decide who is in the selection pool: ### 1. **Identify the ‘at risk’ roles** - List all employees whose jobs are the same or substantially similar to the role being reduced. - In your case, all three employees in the identical roles are ‘at risk’. ### 2. **Define the selection pool** - The selection pool should include **all employees doing the same job** (i.e., the three employees in the identical roles). - Do not include employees in different roles, unless their roles are interchangeable or could be affected by the restructure. ### 3. **Check for exceptions** - If any of the three employees are on fixed-term contracts ending soon, or are temporary/agency staff, you may need to consider whether they should be included. - If any of the roles are genuinely unique (e.g., one person has a specialist function not shared by the others), you may be able to justify a narrower pool, but this must be objectively justified. ### 4. **Legal and Fairness Considerations** - The selection pool must be fair, objective, and non-discriminatory. - Document your reasoning for the pool selection. ### **Summary Table** | Employee | Role Title | Duties Identical? | In Selection Pool? | |----------|----------------|-------------------|-------------------| | A | Analyst | Yes | Yes | | B | Analyst | Yes | Yes | | C | Analyst | Yes | Yes | **All three are in the selection pool.** --- **Next Steps:** Once the pool is defined, you should apply a fair and objective selection criteria (e.g., skills, experience, disciplinary record, performance) to decide which employee will be made redundant. **References:** - [UK Government: Redundancy - Your rights](https://www.gov.uk/redundant-your-rights/being-selected-for-redundancy) - [ACAS: Redundancy: step by step](https://www.acas.org.uk/redundancy/being-selected-for-redundancy) If you need help with selection criteria or the redundancy process, let me know!

The selection pool for redundancy should include all employees performing the same or very similar roles to the one being eliminated—in this case, all three employees in the identical roles—so that fair and objective selection criteria can be applied to determine which individual is selected for redundancy.