What Are Your Rights When Your Position Is Declared Redundant?

The meeting is short.

Shorter than you expected for news this big. Your manager is there. Someone from HR is there. There is a letter on the table with your name on it. And within fifteen minutes of sitting down, you are told that your position has been declared redundant and your services are no longer required.

You nod. You take the letter. You walk out.

And it is only later,sitting in your car, or on the matatu home, or staring at the ceiling at 2am, that the questions start arriving.

Was that legal? Did they follow the right process? Am I entitled to more than what they’re offering? Did I just agree to something I shouldn’t have?

Most Kenyan employees in this situation do not know the answers. And because they don’t know, they accept whatever they are given, sometimes significantly less than what the law actually entitles them to.

So let’s talk about it clearly.

First, what is redundancy and what it is not.

Redundancy is a legitimate business action. When a company restructures, downsizes, automates a function, or closes a department, it may lawfully declare certain positions redundant. That is legal and recognized under the Employment Act of Kenya.

But redundancy is not a shortcut around proper dismissal. It is not a tool for removing employees an employer dislikes. It is not something that can be declared in a fifteen-minute meeting with no prior process. And it is absolutely not something an employer can use selectively, making one person redundant while immediately hiring someone else into the same role under a different title.

If any of those things happened to you, what you experienced may not have been a genuine redundancy at all.

Here are your rights — know every single one of them.

You are entitled to prior notice and consultation.

Under Section 40 of the Employment Act, before declaring any position redundant, your employer is required to notify you and if applicable, your unio, in advance. This is not a courtesy. It is a legal obligation. The notice must explain the reasons for the redundancy, the number of employees affected, and the criteria being used to select who is made redundant.

If you were called into a meeting with no prior communication and handed a letter on the spot, the process was likely flawed from the beginning.

You are entitled to know the selection criteria.

Redundancy cannot be arbitrary. If multiple employees held similar roles and only some were selected for redundancy, your employer must be able to demonstrate that the selection was based on fair, objective criteria, not personal preference, not age, not pregnancy, not the fact that you once raised a grievance.

If you suspect you were selected unfairly while others in comparable roles were retained, that is worth interrogating seriously.

You are entitled to redundancy pay.

This is where most employees are shortchanged often without realizing it.

The Employment Act provides that an employee declared redundant is entitled to severance pay of not less than fifteen days pay for each completed year of service. That is a minimum, not a ceiling. Your contract may provide for more, and if it does, your employer is bound by whatever is more favorable to you.

In addition to severance pay, you are entitled to payment in lieu of notice or to serve out your full notice period on full pay. You are entitled to any outstanding leave days calculated and paid out. And you are entitled to a certificate of service.

Read that list again. Because many employees walk away with a partial payment and a verbal thank you, not realizing they left money and entitlements on the table.

You are entitled to a genuine process.

Employers who handle redundancies poorly often move fast on purpose. The quicker they get you to sign a separation agreement, the less time you have to read it carefully, seek advice, or ask uncomfortable questions.

You are not obligated to sign anything on the day it is presented to you. You have the right to take that document away, read it thoroughly, and seek independent legal or HR advice before you put your signature on it. Any employer who pressures you to sign immediately is creating urgency that benefits them, not you.

Do not sign under pressure. Ever.

You are entitled to challenge an unfair redundancy.

If you believe your redundancy was not genuine, that it was used as cover for unfair dismissal, that the process was not followed, that you were selected discriminatorily, or that your terminal dues were calculated incorrectly, you have the right to file a claim at the Employment and Labour Relations Court in Kenya.

The process is more accessible than most employees realize. You do not need to accept what you were given simply because the letter looked official and the HR manager seemed confident.

Have you or someone you know been through a redundancy process in Kenya? Did you know your full rights at the time and if not, what would you have done differently?