Notification of a reduction in the number of employees: a sample document, including an offer of another position on the staff, as well as notification deadlines

An order to reduce the number of employees is a document that is drawn up in cases where an organization plans to dismiss one or more employees with the exclusion of their position from the staffing table. The reason for such actions by management can be a variety of reasons: from the reorganization of the enterprise and production necessity, to the lack of financial ability to support “extra mouths.”

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Who can and cannot be fired during staff reductions

In general, the employer is free to lay off any employee of the company. However, there are especially protected categories of workers who are legally prohibited from being dismissed due to staff reduction. These include

women expecting the birth of a child,
parents of children under three years of age,
citizens or single mothers who have children under 14 years of age and under 18 in the case of disabled children.

As for minor employees, their dismissal during staff reduction is possible only when a special commission of the labor inspection agrees to this, protecting the rights of workers who have not reached the age of majority.

When is the number and staff of an organization reduced?

Many citizens mistakenly think that downsizing and downsizing are the same thing. However, when downsizing occurs, there is solely a reduction in the number of personnel in the company.

By reducing staff, the employer eliminates the staffing units themselves.

It is important that a reduction in numbers leads to a reduction in staff.

However, there is no feedback here. After all, if a staff position is reduced, a person can be transferred to another position.

The procedure for terminating an employment contract in both cases is identical. When carrying out events, Articles 179 – 180 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation must be observed.

In this case, the employee is paid all required payments, including severance pay based on the order.

Upon expiration of the notice period for layoffs, an order to dismiss the employee is issued.

Procedure

The process of staff reduction is multi-stage and consists of several stages.

First of all, the management of the organization makes an appropriate decision and creates a written basis.

Important clarification: dismissal of employees due to staff reduction is possible only in cases where their positions are abolished in the company, and transfer to another vacancy within the company is impossible (i.e., the employer must initially consider the possibility of transferring employees to vacant positions that correspond to their qualifications and specialization and, if available, offer them to those being dismissed).

Then, in the manner prescribed by law, the trade union body (if there is one at the enterprise) is notified and an order is issued, which every employee who has been laid off must familiarize himself with. If any employee does not want to sign a document, this must be recorded in a special act.
The final stage: final settlement with those dismissed (which is made on the last working day), as well as making appropriate entries in the workers’ work books, their personal cards and other personnel documents.

Difference in staff reduction orders

In addition to the fact that when reducing staff, it is necessary to correctly make entries in the work books of dismissed employees, notify workers in advance about the upcoming dismissal and notify the trade union and the employment service, the HR department employee must correctly fill out the order for the company and personnel.

Dismissal may be made for one of the following three reasons of a reorganization nature:

reduction in the number of employees;
staff reduction, when certain positions are excluded from the staffing table;
reduction of staff and number of employees.

It would seem that the reason for dismissal is the same in all three cases, but no - all 3 reasons are different. If only the staff is subject to reduction, positions will be removed from the staffing table, and not all employees will be laid off. If the number of employees is reduced, the number of subordinates in the company will be reduced. Accordingly, the orders for dismissal will be different.

If it is planned to reduce both the staff and the number of subordinates, there is a special order, more precisely, 2 orders:

the first prescribes an organizational event for the company;
the second notifies about the upcoming dismissal of each laid-off employee.

Since there is no unified form for issuing orders that would reflect the activities of the company, employers are allowed to use their own forms.

Follow the link to open ⇒ Sample order to reduce staff in 2020.

The order must be issued 2 months before the date of dismissal, since employees have the legal right to know about the layoff in advance and begin to look for another job, respond to offers from employers and be ready to register with the Employment Center.

There is another type of order - for personnel. It is published on the last day when employees come to work for the last time. Here it is already necessary to use the standard form of the document - T-8 (if an individual employee is dismissed) and T-8a (if several people are fired).

Follow the link to see what it looks like ⇒ Sample order for personnel.

Rules for drawing up an order

This document is not particularly complex from a paperwork point of view. To date, it does not have a unified standard that is strictly required for use. Enterprises and organizations can write it in free form, based on their own needs and ideas about the content of this document.

However, there is some information that in any case should be present in the order. This concerns

name of the organization,
Full name, positions of dismissed employees,
reasons for their reduction.

In addition, the order must be signed by the employees themselves , whose signatures will indicate that they are familiar with this document in the manner prescribed by law (it should be noted here that this must happen at least two months before the upcoming layoff).

The order can be issued either in handwritten form or printed on a computer, always in a single copy and must be certified by the director of the company. There is no need to stamp it, since since 2020, enterprises and organizations have the right not to use stamps or seals, not to mention the fact that it refers to internal documentation, which initially can only be certified with the help of a “managerial autograph.” After the employee reduction procedure is completed, the document must be transferred for storage to the enterprise archive.

Employee reduction procedure

Conventionally, this entire process can be divided into two blocks of actions.

When selecting candidates for layoffs, the employer is obliged to retain at work persons who have higher labor productivity and qualifications.
People need to be made aware of the upcoming dismissal.
The management of the organization must offer other available positions.

Dismissal of persons who did not agree to move to another position - in this case it is necessary to be guided by Art. 84.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, in accordance with which the following actions must be taken:

An order is issued to lay off a specific employee(s).
Persons who have been laid off must be familiarized with the order against signature.
Preparation of documents (entering information into a personal card, preparing a calculation note, etc.).
A corresponding entry is made in the employee’s work book, and the final payment is made.

Notice of upcoming dismissal

In Part 2 of Art. 180 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation states that the employer is obliged to inform the employee in advance about dismissal due to staff reduction. This procedure must be carried out taking into account the following requirements:

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Notification shall be given in writing;
The addressee must put his signature on the document, which serves as proof that he has familiarized himself with it;
Notification is sent 2 months before the official date of reduction.

You can serve a document in different ways . As a rule, notice of dismissal is given to the employee personally at work. If he is on vacation or temporarily disabled, the notice is sent by registered mail.

Payment of compensation and benefits

In addition to standard payments (salary, compensation for “no time off” vacation), a person who has been laid off is entitled to the following compensation (Article 178 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation):

Severance pay - paid in the amount of the average monthly income that the employee received from a particular employer;
Maintaining your salary for the next 2 months (it is assumed that during this time a search for a new job will be carried out).

Example of an order

This order is drawn up according to the standard scheme for this type of document.

Document header

First, in the middle of the line, its full name is written (with a short indication of the essence). Then, just below, the locality in which the enterprise is registered and the date the order was drawn up are indicated.

Document body

The next part is the main one. First, the reason for the reduction in staff is recorded here, then the order itself is transmitted, which includes several points.

The first contains the date and full name of the company, as well as those positions that are subject to abolition and the number of employees employed in them.
Then instructions are given to the head of the personnel department or another authorized person - here it is necessary to enter his position and full name - to bring information about the staff reduction to those employees who are directly affected by it (remember that this must be done two months before the event itself).
Then a clause is written about the requirement to prepare all the necessary documents and carry out the procedure in a legal manner. Also here you need to include an instruction on the preparation of a new staffing table, in which there will no longer be any positions being eliminated. All this must be done before the actual reduction of employees takes place.
At the end, you need to give a link to the document (i.e. name it and indicate the date of preparation and number) on the basis of which this order was issued.
Then the order should be approved by the signature of the head of the company, indicating his position (director, general director or other person acting on the basis of a power of attorney, etc.), last name, first name and patronymic, and signature with a transcript.
Lastly, the order is brought to the attention of the employees subject to reduction, who must also put their signatures on it.

conclusions

Let's highlight a few key points on this topic:

The difference in staff and headcount reduction is the cancellation of staffing units.
The order for the enterprise is drawn up in any form. There are no special unified forms. The document must comply with the basic rules of office work established by the company.
Employee positions in the staffing table are being reduced, mainly due to production needs and the company's recovery from a crisis situation.
To issue an order, you need an order from the manager or a decision of the general meeting of shareholders.
Without the manager's signature, the document is considered invalid.
Dismissed employees are warned about upcoming events by additional written notices prepared by the human resources department.

How to write a notice of layoff?

Let's look at notifying an employee about staff reduction, a sample of how to do it correctly.

For this document, the law does not establish any strict form of content. Therefore, a personnel employee can draw it up in a free form, but using mandatory details and specifying certain information.

It is best to fill out the document on letterhead, or first create a header that will include the name of the company, registration and location addresses, and bank details.

Under the header on the right side at the top, information about the employee who needs to be laid off is written down - his full name, position and department designation, full home address.

Next, write down the full name of the document and its number in order. The staff member must assign the number while working on the document and immediately register it in the notification log. Also in this place of the form you can enter information about the date and place of compilation.

This is followed by the notification text. It is necessary to inform in free form on behalf of the company administration that it has been decided to lay off workers. In this case, it is necessary to indicate the reason for which the decision was made, the details of the order to carry out the reduction, and the fundamental articles of the Labor Code.

Attention! You can combine a notice of layoff of an employee and a notice of vacancies into one document, as in this example. Then here you need to list all currently available positions and indicate the salary amount. If there are no vacancies at the moment, then this also needs to be written.

Next, you need to directly indicate the date upon which the employee will be fired, and provide information that if there are vacancies, they will be immediately offered to the employee.

After drawing up the document, the manager signs it, indicating his position and deciphering personal data.

At the end of the form you need to make a column in which the employee will have to put a date and signature. This will confirm that he was warned about the reduction and received his copy of the notice.

How to serve a notice

The notice must be given personally to the employee. This is done, first of all, in order to obtain a signature confirming delivery of the document. It is permissible to read the contents of the notice out loud to the employee before handing over the form itself.

If on the day of notification the employee is not present at work, for example, issued a sick leave, then the form must be sent by mail with acknowledgment of delivery.

When the notification is returned back to the organization, it will perform two functions:

Fix the date from which the warning period before dismissal will begin;
Confirm that the employee received the notification.