Q: I have three members of staff, each working 12 hours per week over different nights. Each member of staff has been employed less than twelve months. Is it possible to make all three redundant and just have another existing member of staff working all the shifts, so I would only be paying one member of staff to cut down costs?
Jan 23 2007
Answered by: Peter Done Ask a question
I am not sure that you would save on costs by employing one person working 36 hours rather than three people working 12 hrs each – a lot will depend on their rate of pay. Using the minimum wage for example, currently £5.35ph x 12hrs = £64.20pw i.e. well below the threshold for NI and tax. In addition that is also below the threshold for any employer’s contributions either. Someone working 36 hours x £5.35 would earn £192.60pw thus attracting tax, NI and employer’s contributions.
I can also see advantages in having numbers of part-timers, especially if, as part of their contractual terms, they can be required to increase their hours to cover for holidays, sickness etc.
Far better to have an existing employee, familiar with the job(s), people and systems, do extra hours at time rate than bring in temps with all the attendant training, learning period, costly errors, low performance and Agency etc fees that that incurs.
If you still feel that you wish to change the working patterns you can do so but you must have a good commercial reason for so doing and you must go about doing so reasonably i.e. you must consult.
Also I do not believe it would necessarily be a redundancy situation – the same work is still there and the same amount is still to be done – it has neither ceased nor diminished. You are simply proposing to re-organise who does it. Since all three have less than two year’s service none of them are entitled to a redundancy payment anyway. Neither can they bring an unfair dismissal claim – assuming they do have less than one year’s service at the effective date of termination (EDT). Employees can bring breach of contract claims with no qualifying length of service required. Prudence would dictate, as well as best practice, that you carry out a proper “redundancy” consultation to avoid any later claims of “…he picked me because I am female, a single parent, old” etc.
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