Redundancy selection and parental leave

The ECJ has ruled that an employer’s redundancy selection exercise must not discriminate against workers who have taken parental leave. In this case, the employer used selection criteria from a recent appraisal process, which the employee had not participated in owing to her absence. She was therefore ranked on the basis of an historical appraisal, and this led to her being selected for redundancy.

This judgment seems to indicate that using information from historical performance appraisals may be permitted, as long as this does not disadvantage the employee who is on leave. The ECJ also emphasised the importance of applying identical selection criteria to all potentially redundant employees, even if the information used to apply those criteria emanated from different sources.

This checklist highlights the key issues a business needs to be aware of when an employee requests parental leave.