Employment & Pensions Blog: The Importance of Considering Alternative Employment in Redundancy Processes: Hendy Group Ltd v D Kennedy

With business costs continuing to rise following the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions in April 2025, redundancy is once again a topic of discussion for many companies.

In the recent case of Hendy Group v Kennedy, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) reminds us of the importance of properly considering suitable alternative employment during the redundancy process.

Background

Hendy Group is a well-known car dealership, and Mr Kennedy started working for them in 2013. With over 30 years prior sales experience in the motor trade, Mr Kennedy initially started working in Hendy’s used car team, before managing a new distributorship. In 2015, Mr Kennedy became a Training Manager at Hendy’s Training Academy responsible for training the sales teams across the workforce. In 2020, a redundancy situation arose largely because of the impact of the COVID pandemic, putting Mr Kennedy’s role at risk and he was eventually made redundant.

Mr Kennedy brought a claim for unfair dismissal. He didn’t dispute that this was a genuine redundancy situation, and he didn’t dispute that it was fair to select him for redundancy. However, he argued that the decision to dismiss him was unfair because proper consideration hadn’t been given to the possibility of him continuing to work for Hendy in a different role.

The Employment Tribunal

The Employment Tribunal agreed, and upheld Mr Kennedy’s unfair dismissal claim.

Despite the Hendy Group having a number of vacancies available, the Tribunal found that they left Mr Kennedy to ‘fend for himself’:

• The redundancy letters to Mr Kennedy made no reference to alternative employment.
• There were no active efforts to help him from his line manager, who told Mr Kennedy he could not help him with jobs outside his department.
• No assistance was provided from the team director, or from Human Resources.
• Mr Kennedy was required to return his work laptop during his 7 week notice period, which left him with no access to internal email, job postings, or the intranet. This meant he was essentially forced to apply for vacancies like an external applicant.

The Tribunal went as far as saying that the lack of assistance given to Mr Kennedy served to actively block him from finding an alternative position in the company. He had been unfairly dismissed, and Mr Kennedy was awarded almost £20,000 in compensation.

The Hendy Group appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT)

The EAT refused the appeal and agreed that Mr Kennedy had been unfairly dismissed.

The EAT held that the employer’s duty to consider alternative employment has to be considered within the size and administrative resources of the employer. The Hendy Group was a large organisation with ‘relatively’ large resources. In a short time, there were a number of vacancies which (on paper) Mr Kennedy appeared to be suitable to be considered for.

Comment

The duty in a redundancy process to consider whether there is alternative employment is important. Many employers adopt a minimalist approach to their obligation, and they just attach a list of current vacancies to the redundancy outcome letter with a brief sentence saying ‘if you would like to apply for any vacancies, please let me know.’ But this case shows us that this type of passive approach that puts the onus squarely on the employee can carry an unfair dismissal risk.

Employers are encouraged to actively engage in trying to find alternative employment. The EAT gave the examples of speaking to employees about where their interests might lie, assisting in identifying other roles, encouraging conversations about different roles even if that meant demotion. This is particularly the case where, as was the case here, it is a large company with good administrative resources. And, as always, the steps you take should be documented.

If you require any assistance or support in connection with the redundancy, please contact a member of the Employment Team.