Made redundant - appealed successfully - now what?

daphnelaurier

I've been working with this large construction company over 6 years. I have gone through the redundancy process and eventually it appeared my scoring within the matrix of pool of people up for redundancy was dreadful, people with less experience and qualifications were kept.

I was made redundant 16th of November (and received a cheque with my notice and statutory redundancy pay 3 days later) - I appealed with the company and at the end of the appeal process the head of HR has confirmed my scoring should have been higher, which means I should not have been made redundant as others received less points in the matrix than I did.

He said this has put the company in a difficult position as there are no more jobs and they rather keep one of the other people in the pool employed than me. (...)

He gave me the option of:
1) being reinstated on the books, but being part of pool of people up for redundancy in the next round "which might be within the next month" whilst still not actively doing work but sitting at home. (the construction work finishes in January)
2) being reinstated on the books, not having to do any work and getting pay until the end of december 09.

My questions are as follows:
A) As they have terminated my employment (as stated in their letter of 16th November) would that mean the would have to employ me again under the same terms (= fixed contract, with all benefits like car allowance, living away from home allowance, etc)?
if I take up their offer 2, getting paid until the end of December, would that then mean that they would have to pay me my month's notice again? Tax free?
C) would they pay me my statutory redundancy (was 6 weeks but maybe now 4 weeks?) x 380 pounds again?
D) now that they have admitted they were wrong in making me redundant where do I stand?
E) I have not cashed in the original redundancy check yet. Should I?

I know I've got 28 days to put my situation in front of an Employment Tribunal, if at all, and might discuss with ACAS - however I do not want to go through lenghty process and rather leave relatively amicable.

I will discuss the above with my sollicitor next week, however I just wonder if you could shine a light on the above situation as it's keeping my mind rather occupied! Any help is greatly appreciated!

jazzyman01

If they agree to reinstate you then yes, it is on the same terms and conditions as you enjoyed before.

They are likely to ask for you to repay the redundancy and notice payment made to you, but of course they also have to pay you from the period you were made redundant until today, so you will not be repaying all of the money.

If they do make you redundant at a later date it will be based on number of completed years service x 380 (statutory max). You have stated yours was 6 weeks - it will not reduce. It may go up depending on whether you have completed another year.

If they make further redundancies then you would expect to be in a pool again.

I am sure that your lawyer will advise you that they must use the same criteria for selection as before, unless agreed to changes by the reps etc. With this in mind, unless they are making enough jobs redundant that will include you with your new scoring, you should be selected AFTER a number of your colleagues.

The area of concern I have is that the choice to remain at home until they go through a redundancy process again seems to suggest that they have already preselected you. Not really a fair process!

Of course, if they elect to have you remain at home they must pay you and enable you to make use of any other benefits of your employment.

If the company practice is to pay in lieu of notice then they should do that with you too, irrespective of the fact that they have you staying at home. Finally, you will also accrue holiday, so you will benefit by that too!

benood

Remember your redundancy payment is not taxable (up to £30k)

dickydonkin

daphnelaurier wrote: »

I've been working with this large construction company over 6 years. I have gone through the redundancy process and eventually it appeared my scoring within the matrix of pool of people up for redundancy was dreadful, people with less experience and qualifications were kept.

I was made redundant 16th of November (and received a cheque with my notice and statutory redundancy pay 3 days later) - I appealed with the company and at the end of the appeal process the head of HR has confirmed my scoring should have been higher, which means I should not have been made redundant as others received less points in the matrix than I did.

He said this has put the company in a difficult position as there are no more jobs and they rather keep one of the other people in the pool employed than me. (...)

He gave me the option of:
1) being reinstated on the books, but being part of pool of people up for redundancy in the next round "which might be within the next month" whilst still not actively doing work but sitting at home. (the construction work finishes in January)
2) being reinstated on the books, not having to do any work and getting pay until the end of december 09.

My questions are as follows:
A) As they have terminated my employment (as stated in their letter of 16th November) would that mean the would have to employ me again under the same terms (= fixed contract, with all benefits like car allowance, living away from home allowance, etc)?
if I take up their offer 2, getting paid until the end of December, would that then mean that they would have to pay me my month's notice again? Tax free?
C) would they pay me my statutory redundancy (was 6 weeks but maybe now 4 weeks?) x 380 pounds again?
D) now that they have admitted they were wrong in making me redundant where do I stand?
E) I have not cashed in the original redundancy check yet. Should I?

I know I've got 28 days to put my situation in front of an Employment Tribunal, if at all, and might discuss with ACAS - however I do not want to go through lenghty process and rather leave relatively amicable.

I will discuss the above with my sollicitor next week, however I just wonder if you could shine a light on the above situation as it's keeping my mind rather occupied! Any help is greatly appreciated!

Could you elaborate on the 'next round'?

A similar situation arose in redundancies where I used to work and the HR dept made a dreadful error regarding a colleagues attendance in a scored selection matrix. This meant he actually had more points than the lowest of the employees who was being retained.

Unfortunately (depending on whose perspective) the guy who was initially 'safe' was now redundant.

Does your company's redundancy policy/handbook identify what the 'next round' will be? This sounds mighty suspicious to me.

It seems that a set procedure has been used and has been concluded, however, it would appear that the company don't like the 'amended' result and appear to be moving the goalposts to get the desired outcome. The company cannot restart the procedure just because they do not like the results. As a previous poster alluded to, any future redundancies must use the same selection matrix (unless agreed otherwise).

As you have gone through the appeal, this tells me the redundancy procedure has been concluded. An appeal can only take place when consultations have been exhausted and this seems to be the case in your situation.

I would seek advice as soon as! Very suspicious!

BTW you actually have 90 days from termination of employment to go to tribunal and you can do this without the use of a solicitor if you wish.
ACAS will intervene mid process and will attempt to resolve the matter.

ps

Has the company deliberately 'drip fed' the number of redundancies to reduce any statutory consultation periods or BERR notifications? I ask this because it seems suspicious that a new redundancy process seems to be starting (within 1 month?) so soon after your situation? Strange!

daphnelaurier

Dpassmore, benood and Jazzyman01,

many thanks for your useful replies - I did not realise I can still take them to tribunal up to 90 days after the termination of employment.

It's odd but as I'm right in the middle of this situation I can't see what's suspicious and what is not, I did not expect to be in this situation at all as I've been wrapping my life around the job over the last 6 years (moving across the UK multiple times, doing late shifts, nightwork, etc). It is very useful to me to point out what seems suspicious to you, thank you!

I have to say that I am still awaiting a written confirmation of the appeal outcome (thank you Royal Mail).

I am not sure how quickly they would start another redundancy process - but as I said I work in the construction industry, and our current project has phased handovers, hence it seems they can start another process fairly easily.

The one thing I do find very strange is, like you said, they seem to just want to pay me off as 'they don't like the outcome of the appeal'. Even if they would go through another redundancy process the earliest they would be able to make me redundant is the end of December I think.

Work has never told me outright who else was in the redundancy pool, and even though I have seen the matrix with all allocated scores, I could only see my own name. Is that normal? I also do not know exactly who else has been made redundant.

I will seek advice with either sollicitor and/or ACAS tomorrow morning but will be abroad fo a week after. From your experience/knowledge, would I have to come back to HR with a decision as to what I do (pick up on one of their offers or another proposition from myself) tomorrow or could I come back to them say Monday 7th?

O, a minor but very useful bit of information, I minuted in redundancy appeal that my manager has mentioned in the meeting when I was told I was made redundant that 'even though you might not be made redundant in this pool after your appeal, you will lose your job in the next redundancy round anyway'. She may say that she has never said that afterwards, but at least it is minuted :T

One more technical query:
the have made me redundant, I have received (not cashed) the redundancy cheque, I have received my P45. Work says they will reinstate me on the books. Jazzyman01, you said it is likely that I will have to pay back/hand back the cheque, can they do that as it is their mistake in the first place?
If they now say they reinstate me, does that not mean it will be a duplicate of my previous contract, with commencement date same as termination of employment? Which would mean they will have to pay me redundancy (4 weeks x 380) plus one months notice again as it will be a fixed contract assuming I will be made redundant in next redundancy round whenever that might be?
This is important to me as at the moment I think I can keep the cheque, and will simply be paid another 6 weeks taxed to the end of december, whereas otherwise it will be keep the cheque, get paid to december, plus 1 months notice tax free and 4 weeks redundancy pay.

Sorry for writing such a long reply, but once again, any help is greatly appreciated, I'm not familiar with any of this employment business!

dickydonkin

O, a minor but very useful bit of information, I minuted in redundancy appeal that my manager has mentioned in the meeting when I was told I was made redundant that 'even though you might not be made redundant in this pool after your appeal, you will lose your job in the next redundancy round anyway'. She may say that she has never said that afterwards, but at least it is minuted

Are these notes compiled by yourself or actual minutes which should be signed as a true record of the meeting by relevant attendees? If these are just your own notes, I suspect that your HR will suggest that you have misinterpreted his/her comments - (From experience!).

jazzyman01 has commented that you may have already been pre-selected for the next round of redundancies and the crass comments from your HR person seems to confirm that assertion. Hopefully your solicitor will be able to offer more advice as he will have access to more relevant documentation you may have.

Incidentally, if you are union represented, a union official can view the other peoples selection matrix scores.

Good luck

jazzyman01

You need to have the letter reinstating you because it should outline what they are proposing. How long has it been since the meeting with HR?

To be fair they should check the scoring across the whole matrix and identify the person that should have gone instead of you. It is that person who would now be advised that their job is at risk and go through the fair process. You should be reinstated to your job.

The HR have made a number of errors, therefore, in not doing this. firstly it looks like you have been preselected. Also, if they have done it in batches to keep below the 20 redundancies then their comments clearly show that this was planned and they are likely to fall foul of the requirement to consult for a minimum period of 30 days. They will also not have completed the required forms for the government.

If there are more than 20 redundancies and they are not abiding by the 30 day consultation then each person affected could claim for 90 days pay.

daphnelaurier

Jazzyman01 and dpassmore, once again thanks for your replies.

The notes I was talking about are notes written by the HR representative after I asked for a formal record of the appeal meeting between the two of us earlier this week. As the HR representative and I discussed the fact that the other manager mentioned that I would be made redundant in December/January anyway if I would be successful in my appeal (manager mentioned that 16th November, in the meeting where I was told the selection matrix made me one of the employees who was made redundant).

I do not think they will make more than 20 employees redundant, but thanks for mentioning that.

I am not a member of a union, and to be fair I think I'm too late to involve any union now.

I am expecting the HR formal letter tomorrow, and will wait to see how they described their suggestions forward. I'll keep you posted!

jazzyman01

Anything in the mail?

daphnelaurier

Thanks for asking, but I haven't received anything yet

I'm away from home until Monday now - as soon as anything comes through via email I'll let you know! Otherwise I'll report back Monday. :cool:

daphnelaurier

Ok.

The letter says I still haven't got enough points to keep my job (they have given me a courtesy half point extra for conduct). My colleague with no experience and qualifications has still got higher marks for future prospects within the company than I have.

They also state I misquoted my manager in previous meeting ('...You will lose your job in January anyway...').

This letter makes me really angry. They basically make me look stupid enough to be made redundant. They also state a previous project manager said I was not productive when working for them. They have nothing like that on paper though - I never had any meetings with anyone to discuss my productivity. (I fell out with that project manager several times) They even offered me a promotion straight after, however there is nothing in writing.

I think I'll take the redundancy money and extra pay until end of December. I don't want a lengthy process which might not be successful, it will be them versus me, and with not much on paper to stand on I rather take the money.