Overqualification concerns cannot justify refusing reasonable redeployment, says FWC
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) recently dealt with a case where a landscaping company's attempt to dismiss a senior learning and development manager as a genuine redundancy failed after the Commission found the employer should have offered redeployment to a more junior role despite the worker being overqualified.
The case arose when the company eliminated the worker's head of learning and development position during a business restructure, arguing it constituted genuine redundancy that prevented unfair dismissal claims.
The worker challenged the genuine redundancy classification, arguing it was reasonable for the company to redeploy him to the advertised learning and development facilitator role, even though he acknowledged this represented a demotion with 15-30 percent lower pay and reduced responsibilities.
The company contended that redeployment was unreasonable given his overqualifications and their preference to recruit someone better suited to the junior role.
The Commission dismissed the genuine redundancy objection, finding that while the worker's original position was legitimately eliminated due to operational changes, the company's failure to offer redeployment to an available junior role meant the dismissal could not be classified as genuine redundancy, allowing unfair dismissal proceedings to continue.
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