Offer of alternative employment

norfolk54

The company I work for are planning to make a number of redundancies but have stated that where possible they would offer people other jobs within the Group, but not in the same location that we are in now.

I have looked at the DirectGov website and it states on there "...Whether it's suitable depends on the situation and how close the work is to your current job , however the following is taken into account.......location of the job."

Can anyone please tell me whether there are any general guidelines as to how far from my current location I could be offered alternative employment and I would have to accept this otherwise I would lose entitlement to redundancy payment?

ZAZARK

Hi
I am not sure if there is a generally laid down figure but has a rule of thumb I have always assumed it to be about 3 miles, also i think you can accept the new position on a trial basis and find that it doesn't work for you after say 6 months and take redundancy, I am not sure on how this affects JSA however

bristol_pilot

There is no generally laid down figure.

I think you would be on thin ice with 3 miles. Plenty of people commute 10 or 20 times that distance each day.

very_berry

I found a link to the acas booklet but I can't post it on this relpy as I'm a new user - its on the acas website and it's a pdf for redundancy handling - I'm sure you'll find it! Basically, it say the suitability of alternative jobs is up to the employee to decide and can take into account pay, status, location, working environment etc. But beware, an unreasonable refusal could mean the loss of entitlements. The examples of what's considered unreasonable are copied below - but go through the whole booklet - I found it useful when I was going through a similar thing.

So, a new location may be suitable if it's within, say, 3 miles, if you're a car user, but if you get the bus and the new site isn't on a bus rout then it may be unsuitable.

" Employees who unreasonably refuse an offer of suitable alternative

employment may lose any entitlement to redundancy pay. Unreasonable refusal may rise where the differences between the new and old jobs are negligible or where the employee assumes rather than investigates the changes that a new job might involve in, for example, travelling time or working conditions. Refusal may be reasonable if the new job would cause domestic upheaval, for example if there was a considerable change in working hours or a need to move house. In deciding whether to accept an offer of alternative employment it will be sensible for employees to bear in mind the availability of other employment should they refuse the offer".

getmore4less

Trial periods are 4 weeks.


Suitablitiy is down to you and should be considered on case by case.

you make the case for not suitable
the employer makes a case for suitable

If you allready comute by car then small distances would be considered OK. but if the extra time say interfered with dropping the kids of at school then that would be in you favour but the employer could counter that with some flexability in hours.

If you use public stansport and the alternative location is not so easy to get too then you have a case, how stong would depend on how inconvenient relative to your current comute.

savingholmes

norfolk54 wrote: »

The company I work for are planning to make a number of redundancies but have stated that where possible they would offer people other jobs within the Group, but not in the same location that we are in now.

I have looked at the DirectGov website and it states on there "...Whether it's suitable depends on the situation and how close the work is to your current job , however the following is taken into account.......location of the job."

Can anyone please tell me whether there are any general guidelines as to how far from my current location I could be offered alternative employment and I would have to accept this otherwise I would lose entitlement to redundancy payment?

If you are a manager you could reasonably be expected to commute 30-45 miles unless you have childcarer or other carer responsibilities that make that difficult or have a disability or some other strong reason as to why that would interfere with your desired work life balance...

If you are not a manager but not a basic operative - and you have a car or are on a reasonable bus route - travelling 10-15 miles might be reasonable....

If you are in a starter role or at a basic level within the company it would need to be walkable, cyclable, or on a bus route unless you have access to a car and could reasonably afford any additional petrol.

There are no hard and fast rules... Say you were a Scout leader in your spare time and ran groups on a Tuesday and Thursday you could argue that an increased commute made your community work impossible and that therefore it was unreasonable for you etc....

Normally too if there is increased travel - they should offer help with travel costs and possibly even some travel time for say anywhere between 3 and 12 months.... Again there are no hard and fast rules on this but if they don't offer anything like that - it makes the job offer less reasonable.

Again if you are made an actual offer of alternative employment you can always ring ACAS on 08457 47 47 47 on whether in your circumstances it would be considered reasonable or not...

HTH