Made redundant while her employer was advertising another job

What happened

Expo Centric builds exhibition displays for clients. In August 2024 it hired Ms Irene Narayan, a marketing manager with more than 10 years' experience, on a permanent full-time salary of $130,000 plus superannuation. She led a marketing team of about 13 people.

At the same time the company was rolling out what its finance chief called a strategy built on AI-enabled automation and a consolidated customer database. He said automated systems had progressively taken over a number of manual marketing tasks, such as campaign timing and reporting. Ms Narayan disputed that AI was involved in key parts of her work.

On 28 February 2025, two weeks after she passed probation, the managing director called her into a meeting. She said he told her the role was being made redundant "due to technological innovations" and that she was "terminated effective immediately". A notice of redundancy followed by email.

The job that was being advertised

After she left, Ms Narayan found that the company had been advertising for a Senior Marketing Coordinator. The first advertisement went up privately on Seek the day before her dismissal; public ones followed. The role paid $75,000 to $90,000 and had no staff or budget to manage.

Nobody mentioned the role to her at the meeting. On 4 April 2025, after her solicitors had sent a letter of demand, the company emailed her solicitors offering her the coordinator job and claimed it had already been offered on the day she was dismissed. She turned that offer and a later one down because she did not believe they were genuine. By then she had already lodged an unfair dismissal claim, on 21 March 2025, under s 394 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth).

Why: the genuine redundancy test

Section 389 sets the test. A dismissal is a genuine redundancy, and so cannot be unfair, only if the employer no longer needed anyone to do the job because of changes in the operational requirements of its business, and it followed any consultation duty in an award or enterprise agreement. Even then, s 389(2) says it is not genuine if it would have been reasonable in all the circumstances to redeploy the person, meaning move them into other work in the business or a related company.

Expo Centric passed the first two steps. The Commission found no one had been hired to do either the marketing manager or the coordinator job since, and accepted the real reason was the owner's wish to grow through face-to-face business development rather than marketing. That was a genuine change in operational requirements. The award named in her contract did not cover her role, so there was no award duty to consult.

Redeployment was where the company lost. Its evidence was "confusing and inconsistent". The managing director said the first advertisement was only for "internal benchmarking", yet also said Ms Narayan was offered the same job the next day. The company's own response form said she was not suitable for any available role. The Commission treated his evidence of offers as a concession that a suitable job existed, but did not accept that it had been offered on 28 February. It found redeployment to the coordinator role would have been reasonable, so the dismissal was not a genuine redundancy.

Harsh, unjust and unreasonable

The Commission then weighed the s 387 factors. Because the dismissal had nothing to do with her conduct or performance, most of them were neutral. Three things counted against the employer: it hired her as a permanent leader for what the Commission called "an impulsive short-term experiment", without saying in her contract that the role might be temporary; it gave her no advance notice and no chance to seek advice or bring a support person, which the Deputy President called "unnecessarily heartless and lacking in empathy"; and it did not redeploy her.

How much was awarded

The Commission found reinstatement inappropriate, partly because she had found work at a comparable salary and going back to a lower-paid role would not help her. After applying for 188 jobs, she started a new marketing job on 2 June 2025, about 13 weeks after the dismissal.

The Commission found she would have taken the coordinator role at $90,000 while looking for work. It awarded what she would have earned in it for 11 weeks, after the two weeks' notice pay she had already received: $19,038.47 gross plus superannuation.

What this means for you

If your job is cut in a restructure, ask whether any other role is available, including a lower-paid one, and keep any job advertisements you see. Being offered a job only after you have taken legal action does not automatically fix an employer's failure to offer it at the time.

For employers, redeployment needs to be raised before the decision is final and recorded in writing. A claim for an unfair dismissal remedy must be lodged with the Commission within 21 days after the dismissal takes effect.