DISTINGUISHING

BETWEEN DISMISSAL
AND REDUNDANCY

By: Martin Sukali

What Is Dismissal?
Dismissal is the act of removing or terminating the job or employment of an employee.
Dismissal is when a person working in a company is dismissed from his or her duties.
Dismissal is sometimes also termed as firing or sacking of the employee.
Importance Of Dismissal?
• Job termination or dismissal is an important part of human resources management. People
are employed with a company and have to abide by company policies, responsibilities and
work culture. Sometimes people neglect the rules and regulations in an organization and
have to be removed or dismissed. It is to sack or fire employees who cause a risk to the
business or set a bad example for the other employees. Dismissal of employees are done if
the are caught doing a fraud, neglect duty, leak confidential information behave
inappropriately etc. Dismissal of wrong or bad employees is essential to maintain a good,
safe, trustworthy and positive environment at workplace.
Types Of Dismissal
• Fair dismissal – It is when a company is fair or justified in removing an employee from the job. If the
employee is proven on charges of theft, habitual negligence of duty, disorderly behaviour, bribery,
incapability, financial regularities or subordination, then the job of the employee can be terminated.
Since the company has valid reasons to remove the employee, it is referred as fair dismissal.
Companies usually give orders with a notice period or can be an immediate termination as well.
• Unfair dismissal – It reasons includes maternity reasons, taking part in union activites, whistle-
blowing, discrimination on grounds of age, gender, race, religion, nationality etc. It can also be due to
economic reasons when an employee had to be laid-off. It is also called as unjustifiable dismissal.
Since the reasons are unclear, it becomes unfair for the employee and hence referred as unfair
dismissal.
What Is Redundancy?
• Redundancy in business is when a company identifies a job that is no longer required in the
workplace for any number of reasons. For example, a manufacturing company that begins
using more machine learning might realize some of their employees are no longer necessary.
Another way to describe redundancy in business is finding out which positions add more
labor than the company needs and eliminating those positions.
What Causes Redundancy
1. Technology Advancements
2. Financial Reductions
3. Physical Relocation
4. Company acquisition
Technology Advancement
• Technology advancements can help companies optimize their operations efficiently with
tools like artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation. For example,
communication management systems can automate responses to customer contact forms or
interview inquiries. This streamlined process might reduce the need for administrative
communications employees.
Financial reductions
• Financial reductions can also contribute to redundancy in business because they may cause
companies to decrease the number of employees, they have who perform similar duties. For
example, if a company wants to reduce costs to improve its profit margins, it may look to
decrease its payroll to accomplish that. These reductions can sometimes result in eliminating
positions altogether, despite the value they may provide to the company.
Physical relocation
• Physical relocation is another potential cause of redundancy in business, because companies
may not have the financial means to help all their employees move. For example, if a
company has a limited relocation budget, it might need to determine which employees are
essential for the move and may need to eliminate personnel redundancies. This
determination usually requires strategic thinking and planning from business leaders.
Company acquisition
• Company acquisition can cause redundancy in business because the purchasing company
may already have enough personnel to perform the jobs of employees from the purchased
business. For example, if a learning management system tech company buys a competitor's
company, there may be an overlap between the tasks employees from each original company
perform. These personnel redundancies can occur because both companies focus on the
same area of business and likely used similar operations.