Redundancy
Although rarely acknowledged by employees, redundancy is very stressful for employers. In the current credit crunch many businesses will face having to lay off staff if their business, or parts of their business, in order to cut costs. The last thing an employer needs when making redundancies is a potential employment law claim - if you fail to follow the correct procedure you may expose yourself to the risk of an unfair dismissal claim or, indeed, a discrimination claim.
Never be tempted to offer a ‘problem' employee redundancy simply to resolve the situation - you would be better getting specialized employment law advice.
If there is a genuine potential redundancy situation in your business then you need to carefully consider the selection of candidates for redundancy and properly consult with those employees before using the proper procedure to implement the redundancies, if it proves necessary. A redundancy should ideally be finalised by way of a compromise agreement - so call the employment law experts early to guide you through the whole process as well as providing the compromise agreement.