A Staff Member is on Maternity and Redundancies are Being Proposed- How do I Handle it?

“As a result of the cost-of-living crisis our business is suffering financially, we are therefore intending to downsize and reduce operations. We are proposing to make a number of redundancies, this potentially includes an employee who is off on maternity leave, how should we handle this?”

Redundancy is a fair reason for dismissal and is often used to describe circumstances where an employer proposes to reduce the number of its employees for a variety of reasons which might include; economic pressure, business restructure, relocation or changes in products or services provided. While the law does not prevent an employer making redundancies, there are prerequisites to ensure redundancies