€60,000 WRC Award: A Genuine Redundancy Still Needs a Fair Process

An employer can have a genuine business reason for reducing headcount and still get the redundancy process wrong.

That distinction is at the centre of a recent Workplace Relations Commission decision in which a long-serving sales employee at an educational publishing company was awarded €60,000 for unfair dismissal.

The WRC accepted that the employer was facing genuine commercial difficulties and that a real redundancy situation existed.

The problem was the process used to select and dismiss the employee.

There had been no advance warning that his role was at risk.

He was not given the selection criteria in advance.

There was no meaningful consultation.

He did not get an opportunity to propose alternatives to redundancy.

And the subsequent appeal was found to have been little more than a “tick box exercise.”

For employers, the practical lesson is important:

A genuine redundancy situation does not remove the need for a fair redundancy process.

WRC Case Reference

Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00054906
Unfair Dismissal Complaint: CA-00066905-001
Adjudication Officer: Patricia Owens
Decision Date: 14 September 2026
Outcome: Unfair dismissal complaint upheld
Compensation: €60,000

The decision also considered claims under the Redundancy Payments Act and Payment of Wages Act, which were not upheld.

What Happened?

The employee had worked as an education sales representative for more than ten years.

His employer had experienced significant commercial difficulties.

According to the WRC decision, company profitability had moved from a substantial profit to a loss, its education division had underperformed and changes to the schoolbook market had affected the business model.

Management carried out a review of its sales operation and decided that a number of roles needed to be removed.

The employee’s North West sales territory was selected as one of the areas to be restructured.

The employer’s evidence was that geographical coverage, student density, travelling requirements and the ability to service parts of the territory remotely had informed the decision.

The WRC accepted that evidence.

It found that there was a genuine redundancy situation.

That was not where the employer lost the case.

The problem was what happened next.

1. Genuine Redundancy and Fair Process Are Two Different Questions

This distinction should be at the centre of every redundancy process.

HR needs to consider two separate questions.

Is there a genuine redundancy situation?

There must be a genuine business reason relating to the role, work requirement or structure of the organisation.

Has the affected employee been treated fairly?

Even where the underlying business reason is genuine, the employer still needs to consider:

• who is potentially affected;
• how employees are selected;
• what criteria are being used;
• whether consultation has taken place;
• whether alternatives exist;
• and whether the employee has been given a meaningful opportunity to challenge the decision.

In this case, the employer succeeded on the first question.

It failed on the second.

That is why “the redundancy was genuine” was not enough to successfully defend the dismissal.

2. Employees Should Be Told Their Role Is At Risk

The employee was invited to a meeting concerning the realignment of the sales territory.

The WRC found that the correspondence did not clearly tell him that his employment was potentially at risk.

He was then unable to attend the proposed meeting because he was ill with Covid.

Rather than postpone the meeting, the employer proceeded to notify him of the redundancy by email.

The Adjudication Officer considered that it would have been both possible and desirable to postpone the meeting.

The result was that the employee never had a genuine period in which his position was at risk of redundancy.

Instead, he was effectively informed of the decision once it had already been made.

For HR, this is a fundamental distinction.

At risk

The organisation is proposing a redundancy and consultation can still influence the outcome.

Redundant

The organisation has made its final decision.

If the employee only enters the process at the second stage, meaningful consultation becomes extremely difficult.

3. Consultation Must Happen Before the Outcome Is Final

Consultation is not simply a meeting in which HR explains why the employer has decided to dismiss somebody.

A genuine consultation should allow the employee to understand and respond to the proposal before the decision becomes final.

Depending on the circumstances, that can include discussion of:

• the business rationale;
• the roles affected;
• the proposed structure;
• the selection pool;
• selection criteria;
• the employee’s own position;
• possible alternatives;
• redeployment;
• changes to duties;
• reduced hours;
• alternative territories or locations;
• and any proposals made by the employee.

The important question is:

Could anything raised during consultation realistically influence the final decision?

If the answer is no because the organisation has already decided who is leaving, the process may look more like notification than consultation.

4. Selection Criteria Need to Be Explainable

The employer had identified criteria concerning matters such as:

• the impact of reducing sales presence;
• customer relationships;
• geographical coverage;
• travel;
• territory size; and
• the ability to manage remaining territories.

The WRC accepted that, on their face, those criteria appeared neutral.

However, the Adjudication Officer also recognised that applying them was likely to identify particular posts held by particular people.

That made employee participation important.

Where selection criteria are being used, HR should be able to explain:

What criteria are being applied?

Why were those criteria chosen?

Who falls within the relevant selection pool?

How has each criterion been assessed?

What evidence supports the scoring or decision?

Has the employee been given an opportunity to challenge factual inaccuracies?

Selection criteria should support the decision.

They should not simply be developed after the preferred outcome has already been identified.

5. Let the Employee Make Their Case

A redundancy consultation is not only an opportunity for the organisation to explain its position.

The employee should also have an opportunity to make proposals.

That matters particularly where the employee believes:

• another structure could work;
• duties could be redistributed differently;
• they could cover another territory;
• they have skills suitable for another position;
• reduced hours could be considered;
• or another alternative could avoid dismissal.

The employer does not have to accept every suggestion.

But it should genuinely consider them.

In this case, the WRC found that the employee was not given an opportunity to engage with the employer and propose alternatives before the redundancy decision was made.

That was a significant procedural problem.

6. Consider Alternative Employment — and Keep Evidence That You Did

The employer told the WRC that alternative positions had been considered.

However, the Adjudication Officer noted that no evidence was provided demonstrating that assessment.

This is an important practical point for HR.

It is not enough to say later:

“There were no other jobs.”

The redundancy file should show what was considered.

That might include:

• current vacancies;
• roles likely to become available;
• suitable alternative duties;
• different locations;
• changes to responsibilities;
• retraining possibilities;
• reduced hours;
• temporary arrangements; or
• reasons why particular alternatives were not viable.

If no suitable alternative exists, record that.

If alternatives were considered and rejected, record why.

A clear redundancy file should allow another person to reconstruct the decision-making process later.

7. Illness Does Not Automatically Prevent Consultation

The employee was sick with Covid when the employer intended to meet him.

That created an operational complication.

It did not make consultation impossible.

This is useful for employers dealing with redundancy during:

• sick leave;
• annual leave;
• maternity-related leave;
• remote working arrangements;
• extended absence; or
• other periods where the employee is temporarily unavailable.

The question should not simply be:

“Can we proceed without them?”

It should be:

“What reasonable steps can we take to give this employee a meaningful opportunity to participate?”

Depending on the circumstances, that could mean:

• postponing the meeting;
• offering a remote meeting;
• agreeing another date;
• providing information in writing;
• giving additional response time; or
• making reasonable adjustments to the process.

Commercial timelines matter.

So does procedural fairness.

8. Do Not Make the Outcome Look Final Before Consultation Ends

The chronology following the dismissal created another problem.

The WRC noted that shortly after the employee was told his employment would terminate:

• colleagues were informed that he was leaving;
• his system access was removed;
• his company phone was collected;
• his company car was being recovered; and
• the organisation appeared to move immediately into implementing his departure.

Those actions matter because they can reveal whether management genuinely sees the process as open to reconsideration.

If everything has already been dismantled before consultation or appeal has concluded, the employee may reasonably ask:

What could I possibly say now that would change this decision?

HR should therefore be careful about operational steps that make a proposed redundancy appear irreversible before the procedure is complete.

9. An Appeal Has to Be Capable of Changing the Decision

The employee subsequently requested an appeal.

An independent consultant was appointed.

But the WRC was critical of how the appeal operated.

The redundancy payment was transferred to the employee before the appeal outcome had even been issued.

The Adjudication Officer concluded that the appeal process was intended to be a “tick box exercise.”

That phrase should matter to employers.

An appeal should not exist simply so the organisation can say:

“We gave them an appeal.”

A meaningful appeal should be capable of examining:

• the redundancy rationale;
• selection;
• procedural failures;
• new information;
• alternatives;
• errors in the original process; and
• whether the original decision should stand.

Most importantly:

The outcome should not already be predetermined.

10. An Independent Appeal Is Not Automatically a Meaningful Appeal

The employer had appointed an external person to hear the appeal.

That gave the appeal a degree of independence.

But independence alone did not cure the deficiencies.

The WRC found that the appeal largely focused on whether a genuine redundancy situation existed.

The bigger procedural question — whether the individual employee had been fairly selected and consulted — remained problematic.

This is a useful distinction for employers.

A person hearing an appeal can be completely independent and the appeal can still fail to address the right questions.

The appeal terms should reflect what the employee is actually challenging.

11. Redundancy Is About the Role — Not the Person

A genuine redundancy is fundamentally about organisational change.

The work may disappear.

The organisation may require fewer employees.

Responsibilities may be redistributed.

A role may be carried out differently.

The underlying decision should therefore remain impersonal.

That becomes more difficult where the process appears to begin with:

“Which employee are we going to remove?”

rather than:

“What roles does the organisation genuinely require in the future?”

HR should be able to trace the decision from:

business problem

to

proposed structure

to

roles affected

to

selection process

to

individual outcome.

If that sequence runs in reverse, risk increases.

12. Business Pressure Does Not Remove the Need for Process

One of the most useful lessons from this case is that the employer’s commercial difficulties were accepted.

The WRC was persuaded that the business had experienced significant financial pressure.

The sales operation genuinely needed restructuring.

Headcount reduction was part of a broader cost-saving strategy.

Yet the dismissal was still unfair.

That means employers should be cautious about thinking:

“The numbers clearly justify the redundancy, so the process is secondary.”

They are separate issues.

Financial evidence may establish why redundancies are necessary.

It does not establish that a particular employee was fairly selected and dismissed.

13. The Cost of Getting the Process Wrong Can Be Significant

The employee secured alternative employment several months after the dismissal.

However, his new position paid substantially less and did not provide the same benefits.

The WRC considered his period without work, his continuing reduction in earnings and his efforts to mitigate his financial loss.

The result was an award of:

€60,000

That figure is significant.

It also illustrates why redundancy risk does not end when statutory redundancy is calculated.

A procedurally unfair dismissal can create substantial additional exposure.

A Practical Redundancy Process for Employers

Before confirming a redundancy dismissal, HR should be able to answer the following.

Business rationale

What organisational or economic change has created the potential redundancy?

Roles

Which roles are genuinely affected?

Selection pool

Who should reasonably be considered?

Selection criteria

Are the criteria objective, relevant and capable of explanation?

At-risk notification

Have affected employees been clearly told that redundancy is still only a proposal?

Consultation

Have employees received sufficient information and an opportunity to respond?

Alternatives

Have suggestions from employees been genuinely considered?

Redeployment

What suitable alternative positions or arrangements have been reviewed?

Decision

Can the organisation show how it reached the final outcome?

Communication

Have operational steps been delayed until the decision is genuinely final?

Appeal

Is there a meaningful process capable of reviewing or changing the decision?

Records

Could the organisation produce evidence of each of these steps if challenged six or twelve months later?

The WRC Outcome

The WRC accepted that a genuine redundancy situation existed.

However, it found that the employer had not carried out a fair and transparent process when selecting and dismissing the employee.

In particular, the employee had not been:

• warned in advance that his role was at risk;
• given the selection criteria;
• consulted about the application of those criteria;
• allowed to propose alternatives to redundancy;
• provided with evidence that alternative employment had been properly considered; or
• initially offered a meaningful appeal.

The unfair dismissal complaint was upheld.

WRC Reference: ADJ-00054906

Compensation awarded: €60,000

The Practical Lesson for HR

A genuine business case answers:

“Why does the organisation need to restructure?”

It does not automatically answer:

“Why was this employee fairly dismissed?”

Those are different questions.

A defensible redundancy process needs both.

A genuine business rationale.

And:

A fair, transparent and meaningful process.

Employers should not wait until a WRC hearing to reconstruct how selection criteria were applied, what alternatives were considered or why one employee was chosen.

That work should happen before the dismissal.

Process is not an administrative step added to a redundancy decision.

It is part of the decision.

How Employment Matters Can Help

Employment Matters supports employers through redundancy and restructuring processes, including:

• planning the redundancy process;
• identifying appropriate selection pools and criteria;
• consultation structures;
• consideration of alternatives and redeployment;
• employee meetings;
• redundancy and dismissal processes;
• workplace investigations;
• performance management; and
• manager training and workshops.

Early process support can help employers make necessary commercial decisions while ensuring employees are treated fairly and the decision is properly documented.

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.