You Run a Business. You Don't Have Time to Get a Redundancy Wrong.

You started your business to build something. Not to become an expert in employment law. Not to spend your evenings reading ACAS guidance. Not to lie awake wondering whether the letter you sent this afternoon was in the right order, said the right things, and gave you any protection if this goes sideways. But here you are.

You are not an HR department. You are a business owner.

There are 5.64 million small businesses in the UK. The vast majority, 99.2% of them, have fewer than 50 employees. Most have no HR function at all. No employment law specialist. No one whose job it is to know this stuff.

What they have is you. The person who also does the sales calls, chases the invoices, manages the suppliers, handles the customer complaints, and tries to find time to think strategically about where the business is going.

Research shows the average UK business owner spends 6.9 hours a week on admin and operational tasks alone, costing almost £19,000 a year in lost leadership time. That is time not spent on the things that actually grow the business.

And now, on top of everything else, you need to make someone redundant.

What this moment actually feels like

Let us be honest about what happens when a small business owner realises they need to make a redundancy.

The decision itself is often clear. Business has changed. Costs need to come down. A role is no longer needed. You have thought about it carefully. You know it is the right call for the business.

What is not clear is everything that comes next.

Do you tell them verbally first or send a letter? What does the letter need to say? How long do you wait before the next step? What is a consultation meeting supposed to actually achieve? Do you need to score people against criteria? What happens if they push back? What exactly do you owe them and how do you calculate it? Is there anything about their personal situation that changes the whole process?

Half of UK small business owners say they have experienced poor mental health in the past twelve months — a rate 124% higher than the national average. A redundancy process, handled without support, with the threat of a tribunal claim hovering over every decision, is exactly the kind of thing that pushes an already stretched business owner over the edge.

You do not need that. Your business does not need that.

The risk is real and it is specific

This is not a theoretical problem. Employment tribunal claims for unfair dismissal are up 72% year on year. The average award for a successful claim is £13,749. Add legal fees to defend the claim — typically £10,000 to £18,000 even for a simple case — plus the management time spent dealing with it, and a single wrongly handled redundancy can cost a small business upwards of £30,000.

For a business with ten employees and a tight margin, that is not an inconvenience. That is an existential event.

And the law is getting harder, not easier. From 1 January 2027, the qualifying period for unfair dismissal reduces from two years to six months, and the statutory cap on compensation is being removed entirely — marking a fundamental shift in the balance between employee protections and employer obligations.

The window in which you could afford to handle this loosely is closing.

The options you probably considered

When you realised you needed to do this, you probably thought about a few options.

Google it and work it out yourself. You found the ACAS website. You found some template letters. You spent two hours reading guidance written for lawyers and HR professionals. You now know roughly what needs to happen but you are still not sure you have got all the steps, in the right order, with the right timing, covering the specific circumstances of your employee.

Call an HR consultant. You looked at the costs. £150 to £250 per hour. A minimum of three to four hours for a straightforward case. £450 to £1,000 before you have sent a single letter. For a business watching its costs carefully enough to make a redundancy in the first place, this feels like an uncomfortable irony.

Ask a solicitor. Even more expensive. And probably overkill for a straightforward individual redundancy, even if you can justify the cost.

Download a free template letter and hope for the best. This is what most small business owners end up doing. And it is where most of the tribunal claims begin — not because the letter was badly written, but because the letter was all they had. The process around it was incomplete, incorrectly sequenced, or missing steps they did not know existed.

What you actually need

You need someone to sit next to you and walk you through it. Step by step. In plain English. Telling you exactly what to do, in what order, on what dates, for your specific employee in your specific situation.

You need to know that the letter going out today is the right letter, with the right words, at the right point in the process. You need to know that the figure you are paying this person is correct, calculated on the right formula, using the right cap. You need to know that the protected status of your employee — if they have one — has been identified and handled appropriately. You need to know that when this is over you have a paper trail that would withstand scrutiny.

And you need all of this in the time you actually have. Which is not much.

This is why Redundly exists

Redundly was built for exactly this situation. For the business owner who is doing the right thing by their business, who wants to do the right thing by their employee, and who does not have the time, the expertise, or the budget to navigate UK employment law alone.

Here is what happens when you use Redundly.

You answer a structured set of questions about your situation. Your business, your reasons, your employee, their details. It takes around fifteen minutes. The questions are written in plain English. There is no legal jargon. Helper text explains what each question means and why it matters.

As you answer, Redundly analyses your situation in real time. It checks whether your situation qualifies as redundancy. It identifies whether your employee has any protected characteristics that change how the process must be handled. It flags the specific risks in your situation before you take any action. If something needs specialist attention — a protected employee, a situation involving twenty or more roles, a scenario that does not fit the standard process — it tells you immediately and connects you with a specialist HR consultant.

If your situation is straightforward, you proceed. Redundly calculates exactly what you owe: statutory redundancy pay using the correct formula and the current weekly cap, notice pay based on your employee's contract and statutory minimum, holiday pay for every day of untaken leave. You see the full calculation before you pay anything.

Then you see your risk summary. A plain English assessment of your situation, flagging anything that needs attention, confirming what is in good shape. You confirm the information is correct. You pay.

Within minutes, your complete pack arrives by email. Seven documents, personalised to your employee and your situation, in both PDF and editable Word format. Not templates with blanks left for you to fill in. Completed, professional documents with your company name, your employee's name, the correct dates, the calculated figures, and the specific language appropriate to your business reason and circumstances.

And alongside the documents, a personalised process guide. This is the part that makes Redundly genuinely different from a template. The guide tells you, using your employee's name, exactly what to do next. Issue this letter today. Wait until this date. Invite them to the consultation meeting with this information. Hold the meeting genuinely and take notes. Issue the outcome letter after this date. Issue the confirmation letter at least one working day later. Process the final payment by this date. The appeal deadline is this date. Keep your records until this date.

Every step, every date, every figure, personalised to your situation.

What this means for your business

Making someone redundant takes time and energy away from running your business. That is unavoidable. What Redundly removes is the additional time and energy spent worrying whether you have done it correctly.

You follow the guide. You issue the documents. You hold the consultation meeting. You complete the process. You pay what you owe. And then you close the file and get back to running the business, knowing that if anyone ever scrutinises what you did, you have a complete, dated, professionally structured record of a fair process followed correctly.

A third of small business owners in the UK struggle to switch off, taking only a third of the legal minimum holiday their staff enjoy. The last thing you need is a redundancy process following you home at night.

Redundly does not make the decision for you. It does not tell you whether to make someone redundant. That is your call, made for your business reasons. What Redundly does is handle everything that comes after that decision, so you can focus on what you actually built your business to do.

Who Redundly is for

Redundly is for the managing director of a fifteen-person marketing agency who has never made anyone redundant before and does not want to get it wrong.

It is for the founder of a ten-person tech startup who is restructuring after a funding round and needs to handle two redundancies quickly and cleanly.

It is for the owner of a small construction company who knows the business reason is solid but has no idea what letters need to go out or in what order.

It is for the restaurant owner who has had to cut their team and is terrified of a claim from someone they have worked with for six years.

It is for anyone who runs a small UK business, has a redundancy to handle, does not have an HR department, and cannot afford to get it wrong.

If that is you, Redundly was built for you.

The numbers that make this straightforward

Redundly costs from £149 for a single employee redundancy pack.
A HR consultant for the same output costs £450 to £1,000.
An employment solicitor costs £600 to £2,000.

Getting it wrong costs a minimum of £30,000 and eight months of your life.

Anybody that has got it wrong will tell you, your life will be dominated by a trubinal for the next 6-12 months.

The question is not whether Redundly is worth £149. The question is what else you could do with the time you would spend doing this yourself — and what it would cost you if you got it wrong.

Redundly generates a complete, legally structured UK redundancy process pack in 15 minutes. Answer the questions. Receive your documents. Follow the guide. Get back to running your business.

From £149 at redundly.co.uk. For complex situations, our specialist HR consultants are available for a one-hour consultation from £150.