Redundancy and Refusal of Reasonable Alternatives
A decision in the Appeal Tribunal has examined the question to be considered when an employee refuses an alternative job when facing redundancy.
The general rule is that an employee who refuses a “reasonable alternative” offered by the employer will forfeit their right to a redundancy payment.
In this case, a community nurse was facing redundancy and the employer offered 3 alternative jobs. The original tribunal concluded that at least one of these was “reasonable”. As the employee refused all 3, the employer with held the redundancy payment.
The tribunal originally said that no payment was to be made to the employee because she had refused a reasonable alternative position. The position was in a hospital and she had said that after years of working in the community she did not want to return to the hospital environment.
The employee appealed. The Appeal Tribunal held that the test is not a purely objective one. (Would a reasonable employee have taken the job.) The proper test must ask what the employees reason for refusal was, and take that into account. Therefore in this case the employee received her redundancy pay after all.
The consequence of this ruling is that if, as an employer, you are faced with an employee’s refusal to take what you consider to be a reasonable alternative, it will be wise to find out the employees reasons (and document them) before with holding redundancy pay.
The original case can be read at the following link:
http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2011/0116_11_0112.html
If you would like further information or advice regarding the matters raised within this article please contact John Turnbull by e mail to johnturnbull@stones-solicitors.co.uk or telephone 01392 666894