Can you be made redundant for refusing to switch to full-time work?

It’s important to check what are your contractual hours in your employment contract.

It’s also important whether you have always been on a part-time contract, or whether you have been full time with this company in the past and gone to part time latterly. You are in a stronger position if the contract is, or has always been, part time.

1. It would be unwise for the company to insist that a role can only be done full-time;  taking this position is a form of indirect gender discrimination  –  discriminating  against women who may not be able to take on full-time work.

It would also be difficult for the company to argue a valid case for making a role redundant where the workload is actually increasing, as you say, because there are no reduced requirements.

2. It’s difficult, of course, to predict what the Company will do if you do not agree to increase your hours.

However, an ET would look unfavourably on a company that made an employee redundant because they couldn’t extend their hours to fill the increasing requirements of a role. The company would need to show to an ET that they had made an effort to consider other alternatives before making your role redundant –  for example: taking on an additional person and making the role a job share, where two or more people share what is then  a full-time position or dividing up the additional  tasks across other members of the team.

If the company has actually cited redundancy as a consequence of you not increasing your hours , that is unlawful and does not follow the correct process.

We would suggest that you check your contractual hours, then propose a meeting with the company.  At the meeting ask if they can discuss various options to meet the new job requirements:    job sharing the role, i.e so advertising for another part-time role and be prepared to be involved in the recruitment process for a job share.

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• Employment rights