Employee redundancy refers to a scenario wherein an employer reduces their workforce in the event that a certain job/jobs are no longer needed.
Then, they become “redundant”. Colloquially, the terms redundancy, retrenchment, and layoff are used interchangeably.
Even the most successful organizations sometimes find themselves in situations where they need to restructure and downsize the level of their workforce by making redundancies. There can be a number of different reasons for this such as needing to reduce costs to make an organization sustainable. Hence, this is an especially important area to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.
Opting for voluntary redundancy can benefit both the employer and employee. It allows them to end their professional relationship on a note of goodwill and gives the employee more time to prepare financially for losing their job.