Potential redundancy/dismissal

marbleheadj

Hi,

My fiance and myself work for a large telecommunications company as managers of stores but she has been off work for about 6 months with depression.

The company are now on another cost cutting exercise by banning overtime, reducing each stores budgeted hours and as a consequence they are looking for quick wins to reduce the hours i.e. extra strict with disciplinarys and reviewing sickness.

We are both worried that they will change from being quite supportive of her to finding ways of getting her 'off the books'

We've discussed alternatives together as a couple such as her not going back to work at all, moving from store manager to assistant manager etc but its making her feel worse with the pressure of paying for the wedding which is in May

Anyway, what legal protection does she have and what advice would you guys give us to prepare ourselves for the worse?

Thank you

firesidemaid

hi there.

not an expert, but will offer some thoughts.

i take it your company has an ill health policy - what are the terms of this? they have to follow what is set out in this. is she on half or no pay yet? have occ health been helpful so far?nare they or your partner's gp helping with a plan for your partner to return to work? is your partner's health improving so far?

does your partner ultimately want to return to her existing role / is it contributing to her ill health? could they eventually return in a part time role or would a lesser role help to reduce stress?

can you or her do anything to reduce the stress around the wedding? reduce costs or other bills/spending?

sorry for all the questions x

kiddy_guy

Not being funny, but she cannot continue ad infinitum being off work, as sad it is that she has depression. They will try and find a way of getting off their books, and any company trying to cut costs would do the same. Not what you want to here sadly, but the truth.

Hope she gets better soon and the result you want.

marbleheadj

firesidemaid wrote: »

hi there.

not an expert, but will offer some thoughts.

i take it your company has an ill health policy - what are the terms of this? they have to follow what is set out in this. is she on half or no pay yet? have occ health been helpful so far?nare they or your partner's gp helping with a plan for your partner to return to work? is your partner's health improving so far?

does your partner ultimately want to return to her existing role / is it contributing to her ill health? could they eventually return in a part time role or would a lesser role help to reduce stress?

can you or her do anything to reduce the stress around the wedding? reduce costs or other bills/spending?

sorry for all the questions x

hi, she's on statutory sick pay currently.

we're looking at ways to get her back to work on the terms that would help her - staggered return, less hours to start with or less responsibility to start with.

the wedding plans are being considered as well, possibly cancelling the honeymoon which will strip 2k from the overall budget.

i realise my questions was ambiguous - what I'm looking for is, if the worst came to the worst and she lost her job what would be the normal course of action regarding state benefits (if any) and are there any other considerations I need to take into account?

thanks for the replies

jdturk

A company can get rid of an employee who is unable to do their job but they will have to follow procedures etc. However it may be in your fiance's best interest to see if she can go back on a staggered hours or go part time but whilst money is important there is no point in going back early if its just going to set her back further in the long term

firesidemaid

you will not necessarily want to answer these next questions here, but you will want to think about them allongside the others....(please note i have had a few months off work with stress a few years ago...just so you know...)

is the depression related to worrk? if not, then is her health likely to improve in the near future? does she actually want to return to work? is she old enough/elegible for ill health retirement if she qualifies? can you manage on one salary?

if it is depression entirely rather than stress and not related to work then i hope steps are being taken to treat this. if it is related to work then it is different, as in that case are changes being made to her work to allow her to return?

or, can she take a legitimate break/secondment/time out etc with guaranteed return (which i know some telecoms companies are offering).

work/life balance is important, money is not - what does she currently feel she would like to do if money was not involved? depending on how well she is feeling her decision/s may be affected x