Redundancy and Redeployment Toolkit

Redundancy and Redeployment Toolkit

This Toolkit is part of our Disability Essentials range – a free collection of resources.

Members and Partners enjoy exclusive access to the full range of Knowledge Hub resources plus additional membership benefits.

During difficult times, businesses unfortunately sometimes have to go through the process of redeploying employees to other roles and/or making redundancies. We know that disabled people can be disproportionately affected by economic turbulence. There are some policy drivers for this: a lack of inclusive and accessible education and skills development options to enable disabled people to be eligible for jobs beyond ‘entry level’ – and it is the ‘entry level’ jobs which are often the jobs most affected by restructures and redundancies. Similarly, we have seen too many well-meaning employers create roles specifically for disabled people which aren’t “business critical” only to then be in position of having to delete these roles during financially challenging periods.

But there is no reason why disabled employees should be more impacted by any financial downturn than their non-disabled peers – and indeed it is incumbent upon all of us to make sure they aren’t. So, we’ve created this toolkit to support businesses to make individual, person-centred and Disability-Smart decisions about their workforce. Whilst its main focus is redundancy, we also see consistently a lack of awareness of redeployment as a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act and so the toolkit also contains guidance on what to consider around suitable alternative employment as an option in your organisation.

I do hope you find this toolkit useful and remember that we are here to help you in the rough times as well as the smooth – so please do get in touch direct via your Business Partner or our advice service if you need further support.

Diane Lightfoot, CEO, Business Disability Forum