Does Your Consultancy Agenda Include Redundancy Selection Criteria?

If employees are made redundant due to financial or production related reasons in Finland, Finnish employers must conduct a redundancy consultation process before they terminate employees’ contracts if they have twenty or more employees. During these consultations, the employer must inform the employee representatives on a variety of topics, such as reasons for the planned redundancies and the available alternatives.

What often goes unnoticed is that, as part of the consultation process, the employer must also clarify and consult with their employee representatives on the redundancy selection criteria.

Recently, the Finnish courts have started to pay closer attention to this obligation and its proper fulfilment. Until now, most employers have covered the topic merely by informing that any selection criteria laid down in legislation or applicable collective agreements will be observed when selecting the employees who will be made redundant. Based on the recent case law, this is not sufficient anymore as employers should provide their employee representatives with concrete information on the selection criteria they intend to use.

Due to this trend in the case law, we recommend the employers to provide their employee representatives with detailed information on how the employer plans to select the employees who will be made redundant, if necessary, as a result of the consultation process. This information should be provided already in the consultation proposal and the employee representatives should be allowed to provide their comments on the employer’s plan during the consultation process.

Our experts are available to assist in addressing any questions you may have relating to the topic. Please feel free to contact any of the Borenius attorneys listed in this alert or those with whom you usually work.