Selection Pool Definition Worksheet

A worksheet for defining and evidencing the selection pool, including bumping, interchangeability and the rationale a tribunal would expect to see.

When to use it

Before at-risk letters are issued, and revisited if consultation produces a persuasive challenge to the pool.

How to define a selection pool you can evidence

The selection pool is the single most challenged decision in a redundancy process, and the one employers document least well. A pool drawn too narrowly — around the people you had in mind — is the classic route to an unfair dismissal finding. This worksheet forces the reasoning into writing before at-risk letters go out.

The tests to apply

Work through role and function, skills and qualifications, location and contractual mobility, and the degree to which employees are genuinely interchangeable. Where two teams do materially the same work, the pool usually spans both. Where a role is genuinely unique, say so and record why.

Bumping

Bumping — placing an at-risk employee into a role held by someone not originally at risk, who is then dismissed — is legally permissible and, in some circumstances, expected to be considered. You do not have to do it, but you should be able to show you thought about it. The worksheet has a dedicated section so the decision is recorded rather than avoided.

The population list

Once the boundary is set, list everyone inside it with service, role, contract type and working pattern. This becomes the base for scoring under the Selection Criteria and Scoring Matrix, and the population you check for adverse impact later.

Consulting on the pool

Share the proposed pool with representatives early. Redundancy consultation support works best when the pool is genuinely open to challenge — a persuasive argument from representatives that a pool is too narrow is much cheaper to accept in week one than to defend in a tribunal a year later. Revisit and re-record the rationale if it changes.

This template accompanies the pools and selection chapter of our restructuring guide; the full context sits in our guides library.