Section 389(2) of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) provides that ‘a person’s dismissal was not a case of genuine redundancy if it would have been reasonable in all the circumstances for the person to be redeployed’.
Notwithstanding its decision, the Full Bench confirmed that there is no general redeployment obligation for an employer to implement or facilitate a process of voluntary job swaps.
However, in this present case there were a number of factors at play, which made it “reasonable in all the circumstances” for the possibility of job swaps for identical positions (but for their locations) to be considered by this employer.
These factors were:
- The employer was a large business with a large group of employees who undertook the same job as those being made redundant.
- The employer has previously allowed job swaps in similar circumstances.
- At the outset of the redundancy process, the employer had indicated a willingness to adopt job swaps as an option to mitigate the effects of redundancy.
- The number of employees performing the same or similar job meant that allowing the job swaps would not place onerous training requirements on the employer.
- The employer would not have been exposed to costs relating to transferring employees, as there were potential job swaps available in depots reasonably close to the depot affected by the redundancies.
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