What is redeployment? A guide for UK employers

Every redundancy programme includes a redeployment stage. Most of them run it as a mailing list and are surprised when almost nobody moves.

Redeployment is the process of moving an employee whose role is at risk or no longer needed into a different role within the same organisation, rather than making them redundant. It usually runs during a redundancy consultation and continues until the notice period ends.

It covers three distinct situations, and organisations often confuse them:

• Redundancy redeployment. A role disappears and the employer looks for alternatives before confirming the redundancy.
• Health or capability redeployment. An employee can no longer do their current role, often following occupational health advice.
• Restructure redeployment. A reorganisation changes roles and people are matched into the new structure.

The first is the one most people mean, and the one with a statutory dimension attached to it.

The two get used interchangeably and shouldn’t be. The difference is what triggers the move and who is driving it.

	Redeployment	Internal mobility
Trigger	A role is at risk or has been removed	An employee wants to progress or move
Driven by	The employer, under time pressure	The employee, at their own pace
Timescale	Fixed by the consultation period	Open-ended
Emotional context	Loss, uncertainty, sometimes anger	Ambition
Success measure	People placed rather than made redundant	Retention and engagement

An organisation with a working internal mobility programme redeploys far more successfully, because the infrastructure already exists and people are used to moving. One that only thinks about internal moves during a redundancy is building the machinery under deadline.

A redeployment process runs alongside consultation, and the sequence matters because the clock is statutory.

1. Identify the at-risk population and confirm who is in scope.
2. Open the redeployment window, usually at the start of consultation.
3. Map skills rather than job titles. This is the step most organisations skip and the reason match rates stay low.
4. Circulate vacancies to at-risk employees ahead of, or alongside, external advertising.
5. Support applications. At-risk employees are often applying for the first time in years.
6. Interview or assess, with the process adapted to the circumstances rather than run as standard recruitment.
7. Offer, with any trial period handled properly and documented.
8. Confirm redundancy only once the window closes without a match.

Employers have legal duties around offering alternative employment during redundancy, including trial periods and what happens if an employee refuses an offer. This is general guidance rather than legal advice, so use Acas guidance on offering alternative employment and take advice from an employment solicitor on anything specific to your process.

Most schemes fail for the same four reasons, and none of them are about the availability of roles.

• Matching on job titles. A title-based match finds almost nothing. A skills-based match finds adjacent roles the employee would never have searched for.
• A vacancy list instead of a process. Sending at-risk employees a weekly list makes finding a role their problem, at the point they have least capacity to solve it.
• Hiring managers who’d rather recruit externally. Without a policy that gives at-risk employees genuine priority, managers pick the stronger-looking external applicant every time.
• Starting too late. A window opened three weeks before notice expires cannot work, however good the matching.

There’s also a quieter failure. Employees at risk often don’t apply, because applying feels like admitting the redundancy is real, or because they assume the outcome is decided. Nobody tells them otherwise unless someone is having the conversation with them directly.

Redeployment works when it’s run as a supported matching exercise rather than an internal job board. That means skills data, a policy with teeth, and someone having conversations with people.

• Map skills, not roles. A skills matrix tells you who could do what with two weeks of training, which is where most viable matches sit. Our guide to skill mapping covers how to build one.
• Give at-risk employees real priority, written into policy, with hiring managers held to it.
• Open the window early, at the start of consultation rather than the end.
• Coach people through applying. Most at-risk employees haven’t interviewed in years and are applying while distressed.
• Fund short training. The gap between an employee and an adjacent role is often a few weeks of upskilling, which costs far less than a redundancy payment plus external recruitment.
• Track match rates, by department and by hiring manager. The variation will tell you where the policy is being ignored.

Careerminds research on workforce resilience found a gap between what HR leaders think should happen and what they would actually fund:

Finding	Figure
HR leaders and employees agreeing organisations should help workers affected by AI-driven layoffs	88% and 80%
HR leaders who would support affected employees by offering training to upskill them	63%
HR leaders who would offer outplacement to employees impacted by AI-driven change	36%

Source: Workforce Resilience in the AI Era, Careerminds, December 2025. The sample is 500 HR leaders and 500 employees at large US organisations.

The 63% figure is the redeployment argument in one number. Most HR leaders already believe upskilling is the right response. The gap is between believing it and having the skills data to act on it before the notice period runs out.

Redeployment is almost always cheaper than the alternative, and the saving is rarely calculated because it sits across three budgets.

A successful redeployment avoids four costs that sit in different budgets:

• The redundancy payment and any enhanced element
• Notice pay for someone who then leaves
• The cost of recruiting a replacement elsewhere in the organisation
• The productivity loss while a new external hire comes up to speed

Against those sits the cost of any training and the time spent matching, which is why the saving rarely appears in a single line on a single budget.

It also changes what the rest of the workforce sees. Our piece on survivor syndrome covers the cost of getting that wrong, and the top three alternatives to layoffs sets redeployment alongside the other options.

What does redeployment mean at work?

Redeployment means moving an employee into a different role within the same organisation instead of making them redundant, usually because their current role is at risk or has been removed. It can also follow a health issue or a restructure.

What is a redeployment register?

A redeployment register is a list of employees whose roles are at risk, held centrally so that vacancies can be matched against them before external advertising. Registers work when someone actively matches against them and fail when they function as a mailing list.

What is redeployment in the NHS?

NHS organisations run formal redeployment processes under their own policies, typically with an at-risk register, a priority period during which at-risk staff are considered ahead of external applicants, and a trial period in the new role. Individual trust policies vary, so check the one that applies.

How long does a redeployment process last?

It normally runs for the length of the consultation and notice period, which varies by the number of roles affected and by contract. Opening the window at the start rather than the end is the single biggest factor in whether anyone is placed.

Redeployment fails at the matching stage, not the vacancy stage, and most organisations discover that with three weeks left on the clock. Careerminds redeployment support pairs skills-based matching with coaching for the people applying, and outplacement picks up anyone the process cannot place.

Careerminds has 20M people supported worldwide through career transitions.

Talk to our UK team about redeployment and outplacement for your organisation.