Childbirth and adoption — redundancy and alternative employment

Employees at risk of redundancy during maternity, adoption, additional paternity leave or (from 5 April 2015) shared parental leave, benefit from special rules regarding the need to offer suitable available employment.

The law says that where their role becomes redundant during the leave, they must be offered any suitable available vacancy. Dismissal as a result of failure to offer the vacancy will be automatically unfair.

The obligation to offer any alternative role is only triggered where:

• the employee’s role becomes redundant during the leave period;

• an alternative vacancy exists, either with the employer or any subsidiary or associate;

• the vacancy is suitable for the employee; and

• the terms and conditions are not substantially less favourable than their existing contract terms.