Redundancies: What Is Pooling?

"Pooling" is a term that comes up in many redundancy situations but employers and employees are often confused as to what it means. Put simply, when more than one person does a job and there is a need to remove some (but not all) of those roles from the business, pooling is a way that the employer can fairly identify who should be made redundant.

Let's say that a shop has five sales assistants but the employer identifies that there is really only a need for two. All five assistants should be pooled together before a decision is made about who stays and goes. It's not fair to pick any three for redundancy without following this process.

When is pooling relevant?

"Redundancy", as defined in the Employment Rights Act 1996, can mean several types of scenario; for example, closing down a particular place of work, removing a particular team or department from the organisation, or even the business ceasing to provide a particular service or good which means the