Is your organisation on the list of businesses being affected by the spread of COVID-19?
If you find yourself in the position that you need to make staff redundant, this redundancy notice letter template, written and approved by Employment Law experts and is fully customisable to your businesses situation.
Download this free Redundancy Notice Template.
Stay safe!
The global pandemic has placed significant stress on millions of businesses across the world. And unfortunately, many are being forced to make positions redundant in order to save the business or must shut down completely.
This sample redundancy letter has a section for you to edit where you can add in any information regarding why the redundancy is being made, whether that be covid or non-covid related. It is good to let your employees know exactly why this is happening so you can be as open and approachable as possible.
Dismissals are something no one wants to do but there could be some other options, depending on your situation.
Redundancy occurs when an employer either decides they no longer need an employee’s job to be done by anyone, or the employer becomes insolvent or bankrupt, and terminates their employment. The job itself, not the employee, becomes redundant. You may find yourself in a position where you need to give redundancy notice when the business:
Before dismissing the employee, to avoid a successful claim for unfair dismissal, employers should consider whether it is reasonable in all the circumstances to re-deploy the employee in the organisation. This would extend to any businesses of “associated entities” of the employer, including “related bodies corporate” (as defined in the Corporation Act 2001).
Matters to consider would include the nature of any available position, the qualifications required to perform the job, the employee’s skills, qualifications and experience, the location of the job and the remuneration which it offered. You should notify the employee whether you have considered any re-deployment options.
Notice of termination and redundancy pay forms part of the National Employment Standards (NES). The NES apply to all employees covered by the national workplace relations system, regardless of any award, agreement or contract. The NES establishes the minimum entitlement to the termination or redundancy notice period, or payment in lieu of notice, that an employer must give an employee to end their employment. This applies to all employees (other than casuals), not just those covered by the national workplace relations system.
To help you determine how much redundancy payout your employee might be owed, please use the Fair Work Redundancy Calculator.
An employer must not terminate an employee unless they have either:
Some employees don’t get redundancy pay when their job is made redundant.
The following employees don’t get redundancy pay:
It is important as an employer you understand what your obligations are concerning making a position redundant and ensuring that it is a genuine redundancy and not an unfair dismissal or unlawful termination. As an employer, you also need to comply with any relevant award, enterprise agreement or registered agreement that is in play. We suggest heading over to our legal partners, Employment Innovations, to learn more.
We also have plenty of resources about Covid-19 and how to manage a business during an emergency. Visit our Covid-19 Resource Hub for whitepapers, factsheets, templates and more.
An employer must provide an employee with a written notice letter of the day of termination when ending their employment.
An employer may give notice to the employee by either:
An employee may also need to give their employee notice of termination if their award of agreement specifies it.
If a business is considering redundancy of 15 or more staff, employers must give written notification to the Department of Human Services of the proposed dismissals. More information, and a redundancy notification template, can be found on the Department of Human Services website.
A small business employer, for the purpose of determining pay, is an employer who employs fewer than 15 employees at the time when redundancy notice is given. To determine whether the employer has fewer than 15 employees, the following factors need to be considered:
An award or agreement may have different redundancy provisions which could apply instead of those listed above. These provisions, such as industry-specific redundancy schemes, can override the listed exceptions. For example, the industry-specific redundancy scheme in the Building and Construction General On-site Award means that small business employers may need to provide redundancy payment.
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