Voluntary redundancy - your experiences?

MrsTinks

I took VR some years ago and managed to negotiate a good package at the time. I wanted some time off to chill but still went to interviews etc - luck would have it that I got a job and they wanted me ASAP so start a week after my last day in my old job lol (I insisted on a weeks holiday! LOL)
I've never had anyone ask me about the VR - they have asked about why I left the various roles and I have 1 redundancy (last in first out) and a VR - neither have ever been questioned. I have interviewed people myself and VRs or normal redundancies never bothered me - if an employee gave me cause to worry about previous jobs and leaving then doing a quick search was usually enough to verify if redundancies took place at that time or not. But if I had cause to search then usually it was because something about an applicant bothered me and that would mean not likely to get the job regardless to be honest...

Right now we would actually be a lot better off if we were made redundant... we have incomeprotection cover in place that would pay 80% of our salaries, I have a policy in place on my main credit card as well and obviously we have mortgage protection - those alone would mean we'd get MORE than we do now...
Then take into account that we wouldn't have to travel for work (well hubby wouldn't - I'm on maternity leave ) or buy lunches at work etc and we'd be sitting pretty before any redundancy payment! Infact if we got made redundant we could probably be debt free!

molit

Best thing I ever did was taking VR, although that was before the economy went totally tango uniform...

In terms of how people view it, the younger people are generally a little, oh he's not telling us everythign, but the more senior, the more respect - the boss of the company I now work at took it in his previous role. Some people view it as having confidence in your ability, and I would guess that more people than you realise have bneen made redundant at some point.

Those people who are negative are generally the ones who would be still be negative if you had quit and started there without the money.

A further point to note, iwthout wanting to scaremonger, if the company is in dire staits, but has a decent reducnacy option, I'd takle the money ASAP. If the company goes bust, I believe you only get statutory pay, which nin my case was about 1/4 of what the company gave me