What should be in a redundancy appeal letter?

What should be in a redundancy appeal letter?

If you have just been made redundant, I’m sorry to hear that. Many people embrace redundancy as a new start and many people happily sing about how redundancy changed their life. However, if you feel like you have been unfairly managed out right now and the redundancy was a sham, (check out our sham redundancy article here) then you will be likely feeling hard done by to say the least and more likely to angry, resentful and upset.

Most likely you will be contemplating appealing your redundancy. Perhaps you have never written an appeal letter to an employer before and thus you are unsure of how to frame it and what to put in it.

Well here are some tips to help you out in writing that appeal;

• Make it straight to the point, don’t waffle.
• Only bring up relevant and recent treatment if you believe that has been instrumental in the sham redundancy decision and demonstrate how that has been used against you.
• Redundancy is normally fair for two reasons;
  • the business/organisational justification or rationale to why it was a genuine redundancy;
  • and the process your employer embarked upon for the redundancy.

If you think your employer failed in one of these aspects or worse both, then point this out in your redundancy appeal letter.

• Legitimate redundancy should be about the job no longer being available, NOT the person being redundant. This is only confirmed after the job has been confirmed as being redundant and you should have been offered other suitable vacancies. If this didn’t happen factor this in to your appeal letter.
• Consultation is a legal requirement. If you were not formally invited to at least one, normally two, formal one-to-one consultation meetings with a note taker present, then its unlikely legal consultation can be considered to take place. The compensation for failing to consult is up to 12 weeks’/90 days full pay at tribunal, irrespective of if you got your redundancy payment and/ or notice pay or not. For sure, make this point in your appeal if the consultation was lacking.

If you are still serious about appealing your redundancy and not sure what to write and how to bring these points together, consider downloading our redundancy appeal letter template which will take you through an appeal letter step-by-step. It makes the relevant points to why your redundancy was unfair. It is so easy; the letter is written; all you need to do is edit for your circumstances and follow the instructions in the guidance notes. I have written this in a systematic easy format, whilst pointing out legal failings, keeping it simple and to the point. Making an overall powerful redundancy appeal letter easy to understand and edit. It is exactly the kind of letter that would make my heart stop if I was an employer receiving this. If you believe you have suffered an unlawful or unfair redundancy dismissal be sure to appeal, because if you don’t and you do intend to go to employment tribunal if you fail to appeal your award could be decreased by 25% on the basis you didn’t follow your employer’s internal resolution process.  

Also if you are just hearing that your job is up for redundancy and are looking for some advice on how to fight it, check out our guidance and podcasts here on questions to ask in redundancy consultation.  Good luck!