Bumping is a practice used by many companies to reserve talent pool during downsizing, wherein, a senior level employee, whose position has been selected for removal, is offered the option of accepting an alternative position of lesser seniority within the organisation

Bumping is a practice of allowing more senior level employees who become redundant in their profile and the organization replaces them in alternate positions which are occupied by other employees. Redundancy sets in for various reasons such as commercial reasons, employee morale, HR policy etc. The question to be answered is: whether   bumping is only an option available to employers? Can the organization consider saving the jobs of a sluggish senior employee at the cost of younger, efficient junior employee?

Bumping is a process used by many organizations during downsizing to keep the valued staff by giving employees with seniority the option of taking other positions within the company that they are qualified for and that are currently held by employees with less seniority.

Thus employees get a chance to ‘bump’ another employee out of their position, so it’s the second employee that actually gets made redundant. It is a useful tool for employers who want to hold on to the skills and experience of employees who would otherwise be downsized.

An employer can avoid bumping if he/she has a good reason to do so. On the other hand, bumping can be used if the employer is able to show that the true reason for the dismissal of the bumped employee is redundancy and not some other reason, such as performance, which would take the dismissal outside the scope of redundancy and therefore make it potentially unfair. Bumping is a point to be considered under corporate governance of
what principles should employers follow while identifying the selection pool for redundant employees.

On the flipside many companies make the mistake of thinking younger, less experienced employees will cost less than older employees who make more money. One fact cannot be overlooked that long-time employees are more knowledgeable, have built a wealth of knowledge about how to work most efficiently and know the customers. They have the past history of customers; what’s worked in the past, what hasn’t, and why. A younger, less experienced employee, eager to make his mark, may implement policies and procedures that have failed numerous times before, alienating customers and costing the company money. Therefore it is better to avoid signalling to senior employees wrongly.

Even though organizations have considerable flexibility in determining the pool from which employees will be selected for redundancy, they must still consider being reasonable or running the risk that sacking will be deemed unfair. Companies often warp their own ethical climate by pushing too much change from the top, too quickly and too frequently. Bumping results in a hurried process to implement staff reduction targets, dispose of big businesses in major markets, and lead mergers and acquisitions. Such actions create inherent conflicts of interest.

When assessing if an organization is being fair or reasonable in deciding on a selection pool of redundant employees, it is worth fixing a panel to decide parameters to term employees ‘redundant’ and to check whether other groups of employees are doing similar work. And, whether employees’ jobs are exchangeable and whether such transfers/exchanges are there in HR policies or not, and, whether employees are informed about such policies from time to time.   

Common provisions in bumping rights

1. The provisions of bumping rights often include a clause requiring that a senior employee must have the minimum qualifications required to fill the position of the junior employee who will be laid off as a result of the bumping system.
2. Provisions may limit the type of positions that can be considered for bumping, such as only positions with the same job classification or title or only jobs with a lower job classification or title.
3. Some contracts include a provision regarding the refusal to exercise bumping rights. For example, there might be a clause that limits the number of job offers an employee can refuse before they are struck off the company’s re-employment register.

What does subject to bumping mean?

Subject to bumping means that the employee holding the job in question can be expatriate by another employee in terms of applicable bumping rights.

A business can have an established bumping system that is defined in the company policy, stated in a binding agreement between the employer and the employee, or in a union contract or collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The rules that afford an employee bumping rights will vary with each agreement.

Though the business world keeps talking about ethical values on various platforms, corporate ethical failures have become painfully common. World over, billions of dollars have been paid in fines by Corporates charged with ethical breaches. In a survey conducted by ECI’s (Ethics & Compliance Initiatives) National Business Ethics Survey, has found that the pressure employees may experience to compromise their organization’s ethics standards, policies or the law is linked with an increased likelihood to observe misconduct. In brief, pressure goes hand in hand with higher prevalence rates of misconduct. Every employee in an organization is exposed to the risk of facing an ethical dilemma at some point in time, and some ethical decisions can be more challenging.

Bumping can be a result of excessive pressure to reach unrealistic performance targets from the superiors. When imaginative goals are set, employees make compromising choices in order to reach targets, this leads to poor appraisals, resulting into redundancy. 

An employer can avoid bumping if he/she has a good reason to do so. On the other hand, bumping can be used if the employer is able to show that the true reason for the dismissal of the bumped employee is redundancy and not some other reason, such as performance, which would take the dismissal outside the scope of redundancy and therefore make it potentially unfair. Bumping is a point to be considered under corporate governance of
what principles should employers follow while identifying the selection pool for redundant employees.

Even though organizations have considerable flexibility in determining the pool from which employees will be selected for redundancy, they must still consider being reasonable or running the risk that sacking will be deemed unfair. When assessing if an organization is being fair or reasonable in deciding on a selection pool of redundant employees, it is worth fixing a panel to decide parameters to term employees ‘redundant’ and to check whether other groups of employees are doing similar work. And, whether employees’ jobs are exchangeable and whether such transfers/exchanges are there in HR policies or not, and, whether employees are informed about such policies from time to time.

It is worth to note whether highly skilled employees get automatically excluded from a redundancy selection pool: if a group of employees does similar work to those in the selection pool, an employer will need a good reason to exclude that group. One of the examples of bumping is in British Steel plc, London v Robertson (EAT 601/94), in which a group of craftsmen had been trained in all the skills required by the company. Redundancies were made from a pool of longer-serving engineers. The tribunal concluded that the multi-skilled craftsmen should have been in the selection pool, since they could do the same work. So employers should not exclude employees whose jobs are interchangeable with those of individuals in the pool unless they have a good business reason for doing so.

By the way, bumping is a practice used by many organizations to reserve talent pool during downsizing, wherein, a senior level employee, whose position has been selected for elimination, is offered the option of accepting an alternative position of lesser seniority within the organisation. Hence, bumping can be a useful strategy for employers who wish to retain the skills and experience of an employee who would otherwise be downsized. Many organization which practices ethical policies, are reluctant to consider bumping because of its obvious injustice to the employee who is bumped.

On the other hand, bumping maybe considered appropriate when an employer intends to make a senior role redundant but retain a more junior role, and especially if the senior level employee has more experience of service and better qualifications. In such instances, it is obviously prudent to ask the senior employee if he would consider working in a junior position at a reduced salary or would prefer to quit. In most cases, the employee would refuse to accept such a position. But often, an employee maybe inclined to accept the position in certain circumstances, when losing a job would affect him more adversely than accepting a relatively junior position. The bumped off junior employee may also opt for the same option, thus creating a flow of uncertainty in the business as each displaced employee looks to bump out his subordinate in turn.  However, this situation does not arise, it is very rare.

Though the business world keeps talking about ethical values on various platforms, corporate ethical failures have become painfully common. World over, billions of dollars have been paid in fines by corporates charged with ethical breaches. In a survey conducted by ECI’s National Business Ethics Survey, while leaders pay holistic attention to conduct ethical business, workers take advantage of loopholes in system and compromise on the ethical standards set by the organizations. Every employee in an organization is exposed to the risk of facing an ethical dilemma at some point in time, and some ethical decisions can be more challenging.

Bumping can be a result of excessive pressure to reach unrealistic performance targets from the superiors. When imaginative goals are set, employees make compromising choices in order to reach targets, this leads to poor appraisals, resulting into redundancy.