If you’re facing a workplace relocation, you might wonder if your company can move without offering redunancy. Our guide will help you unpick the process, and your employee relocation rights.
Workers are expected to be more mobile these days and in today’s business world, takeovers and mergers are common.
Companies can relocate for many reasons. These can include consolidating offices after a merger, taking advantage of cheaper overheads, or setting up in a new market.
Being Asked to Relocate?
Perhaps your company is moving to a good location that is appealing to you and your family. If you are being offered relocation expenses, then you may feel that the upheaval is worth it.
But for many, the uprooting of children from schools and moving away from family is too much.
It could be that house prices are more expensive in the new location. Maybe employees would only be able to afford smaller houses, or perhaps not be able to buy at all.
For these reasons, and many more, there can be many workers who will not want to make the move.
Can the Move be Forced?
But do employees have to move to wherever the company asks them to? The answer is that it depends on their employment contract. Many employees in the UK are subject to ‘mobility clauses’ in their contracts.
These allow the employer to move employees with reasonable notice, and optionally helping with the expense of the move.
If there is no ‘mobility clause’ in employees’ contracts, then relocation will constitute a change of contract. This means the company will have to negotiate with employees to allow the change.
This might end up with some form of package to aid with the cost of the move. However, it depends on the job market, the level at which each person is employed, and the culture of the organisation.
Do Redundancy Rules Apply?
If employees have no mobility clause and do not want to move, they can, in certain circumstances, be made redundant.
This is usually the case if their job in the old region ceases to exist and the alternatives in the new region are not suitable.
Deciding whether or not redundancy rules apply is a complex area, and people considering refusing to move should take legal advice before making their decision.
People for whom redundancy does apply will be able to take the new job in the new location on a four-week trial before refusing it completely.
TUPE Regulations
Special protection applies when the relocation comes about as a result of a takeover and the new owners want to move everybody.
In this case, regulations known as Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment), more usually known as ‘TUPE’, come into play.
These regulations protect employees’ terms of employment and ensure that the new owners honour the terms and conditions of the previous employer. It should make no difference that the relocation is driven by new owners.
Finally
There are two points worth finishing on. The first is that even if you have a mobility clause, an employer still cannot make unreasonable demands on you in terms of relocation.
If you were asked, for example, to move to another country tomorrow, it’s unlikely that an Employment Tribunal, if the dispute got that far, would consider that reasonable.
The second is that as long as you are confident of getting another job and there is work available in your area, no one can make you move as you can simply resign. However, many people are not fortunate enough to be in that position.
