Redundancy can be described as a form of dismissal mostly due to a need to cut down a certain number of employees or non-renewal of expired contracts. Redundancy may occur due to several reasons. Redundancy may arise when there is a lack of need for a particular service, an employee is hindering or stopping the operation of a business or in the place where the employee works, the work done by the employee is eliminated by the employer, or when a fewer amount of employee is required to do a particular job. Redundancy may be made to save costs or address overcapacity.
Certain procedures should be followed when making redundancies in an organization. To make redundancy fair, employees should be given prior warning about possible redundancies, reasonable steps should be taken when redeploying employees affected by redundancy, and due payment for redundancy should be made.
Business organizations should make efforts to avoid redundancy. Some measures to avoid redundancy include; redeploying or retraining employees, halting or lessening over time, providing employees with a choice of early retirement, encouraging short-time working, offering employees leave from work for a sabbatical purpose, pay freezes, taking time off should attract a pay cut, seek employees who would take voluntary redundancy willingly, eliminate discretional benefits.