Can You Make Someone Redundant If Their Job Still Exists
So, the big question doing the rounds at the water cooler, or maybe just in your own head after a particularly baffling meeting, is this: can you make someone redundant even if their job, in theory, still exists? It sounds a bit like asking if you can eat your cake and have it too, doesn't it? But in the wacky world of work, it’s a surprisingly common conundrum.
Think about it. Let's say your company decides to get super organized. They bring in a shiny new efficiency consultant. This person, let’s call her Brenda, has a spreadsheet for everything. Brenda looks at the “Filing Department.” She sees three people doing the same thing: filing papers. Now, the actual job of filing papers is still very much a thing. Papers still arrive, they still need to go somewhere. But Brenda, with her laser-like focus and a penchant for pie charts, declares, "We only need one filer. The other two roles are… redundant."
It’s like having a whole orchestra, but realizing you only really need the conductor and one very enthusiastic drummer.
So, even though the task of filing is still there, the position held by, say, poor Gary and lovely Susan, has effectively vanished. Their specific slice of the filing pie has been gobbled up, leaving them with… well, a very empty plate.
This is where it gets a bit… sneaky, perhaps? Or is it just plain old common sense in disguise? The company isn't saying "filing is no longer important." Oh no. They're saying, "Gary's role as the sole, individual filer is no longer needed in its current form." It’s a subtle, but crucial, distinction. It's like saying you still need a driver for your car, but you don't need three people to take turns driving the same car around the block all day.
Imagine a scenario where a company has a dedicated “email checker.” This person’s sole purpose is to read incoming emails. Now, most of us have been checking our own emails for years, right? So, when the company realizes this, they might decide that the full-time "email checker" position is, in fact, redundant. The task of checking emails is still vital, but the idea of a single person doing only that, while everyone else has inboxes overflowing, starts to look a bit like having a designated person to breathe for the office.
And what about those jobs that are just… a bit too much of a good thing? Like the team that was responsible for manually inputting data from spreadsheets into another spreadsheet. They did it with great diligence, bless their cotton socks. But then someone invented a magical little program called an API. Suddenly, the data could flow itself. The job of "manual data entry specialist" became as extinct as the dodo, even though the data still needed to be… well, entered. The function remained, but the human doing it became a historical artifact.
It’s a bit like your favourite comfy armchair. You still need a place to sit, but if you suddenly bought a whole fleet of identical armchairs, you might realize you only have so many bottoms to go around. Those extra armchairs, no matter how comfortable, become redundant. Their purpose, to provide seating, is still valid, but the need for that many is gone.
The clever bit, the part that makes you scratch your head and wonder, is that the job description might look almost identical on paper. "Responsible for ensuring all incoming correspondence is processed." "Ensures accurate data transfer between systems." The words are the same, but the context has shifted so dramatically that the original job holder is… well, out on their ear.
It's a bit of a linguistic tightrope walk. They're not saying "your skills are no longer valuable." They're saying "the way we used to utilize those skills, in that specific role, is no longer the most efficient way." It’s like saying you’re a fantastic bricklayer, but the company is now building with Lego. Your bricklaying skills are still top-notch, but the bricklaying job as it was, is gone.
And let's be honest, sometimes it's just about streamlining. A department might have three managers for two projects. The projects are still there, the work still needs managing. But the idea of three people overseeing things that could probably be handled by one, or perhaps two, starts to sound a bit like having a referee for a game of solitaire.
So, can you make someone redundant if their job still exists? The answer, with a knowing wink, is a resounding and slightly mischievous yes. The job, as a concept, might live on, but the specific embodiment of that job, the person doing it in the old way, might find themselves looking at a very different future. It's a bit like a ghost still haunting the premises, even though the building has been re-purposed into a trendy yoga studio.