The Fair Work Commission on Monday said the ABC should continue with its process of selecting employees for potential redundancy, which has involved grouping staff with similar skills into pools to fight for a reduced number of positions.

The process has been compared to the teen book series The Hunger Games, in which teenagers are pitted against each other in a fight to the death.

Those ABC staff who do wish to accept an offer of redundancy should be given until 5pm on Friday to contact their managers, according to the commission, which heard the matter on Monday. The ABC would then process the redundancy packages of people willing to leave before Christmas. Staff who have been targeted with redundancy, but who have not yet been told, should be notified by late Wednesday.

The commission also recommended that the ABC continue to negotiate with union representatives and staff it had identified has potentially redundant, but who did not wish to leave the organisation before Christmas.

"In making these recommendations, the commission makes no comment or determination on the validity or otherwise of the redundancy process engaged in by the ABC and in that regard, the unions reserve their rights," the Commission's dispute resolution said.

In an update to staff, Alan Sunderland, the ABC acting director of people, said the Fair Work Commission had given the public broadcaster the "go-ahead" for its plans to advise staff in pools if they were potentially redundant. He said the message to staff was simple: "If you are potentially redundant and you want to go, the ABC will proceed with that."

Mr Sunderland welcomed the commission's recommendation, saying it would end uncertainty for staff in pools who are concerned about whether or not they face potential redundancy.

"We will therefore be proceeding as planned to run those skills assessments and let those involved know the outcome by the middle of this week," he said.

"Whether you have been directly identified as potentially redundant because your job has disappeared or identified as potentially redundant from one of the pools, consultation will continue unless you want to accept a redundancy.

"If you are potentially redundant and you do not want to go, consultation will continue and no one will be forced to leave or forced to make a decision about leaving before the end of the year."

On Friday, Mr Sunderland told staff in an email that given how quickly the end of the year was approaching, the ABC had already decided that "no one who is potentially redundant will be leaving the ABC before the end of the year if they don't want to".

"Regardless of how far we get in the consultation process over the next two weeks, regardless of whether we end consultation on a great many of the proposals, we will extend the process into January for any staff who do not want to make a decision about opting for redundancy or exploring redeployment," he said.

The unions representing journalists and public sector workers lodged a dispute application with the Commission after management informed staff by email on Friday that those targeted for redundancy would be notified by the middle of this week. Close to one-third of 300 staff grouped in pools of similarly skilled colleagues will be advised their positions have been made redundant.

Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance and Community chief executive officer Paul Murphy said the only people who would be leaving the ABC this week were those who wanted to leave. He said unions remained opposed to the ABC's redundancy process as it was inadequate and opaque.

"The pool process is unfair, lacks transparency and needs to be changed," he said.

Community and Public Sector Union president, Michael Tull, said three weeks ago, ABC management was determined to proceed with 300 redundancies before Christmas.

"Instead, because of union action, the only people leaving before Christmas are people who want to go," he said. "It's a commonsense position ABC management should have taken right from the start."