Consultation meeting today, what questions to ask?

joebmc

getmore4less wrote: »

Don't demand, negotiate.

Get them to tell you what the real objectives are and why they need to merge the jobs this will help you understand where you can negotiate.

Are you both curently busy full time?

If you realy think that outside employment is unlikely then you are in a good position.

I would be concerend about normal weekly cover and holidays.
How do you avoid becoming a 24/7/365 person.

Will you be able to train people to help out in the rolls.

Statutory trial is 4 weeks but can be negotiated to be longer for good reasons training is one of them.

Both our jobs “can” be busy full time, projectionist if there are a lot of films scheduled for the day (3 a day would mean stuck down there all day).

And my role can be busy if things go wrong (which I mentioned in the meeting, as I don’t know what’s going to need doing hour from hour I can’t really manage my time). On a good day I find myself with plenty of spare time on a bad… depending on how bad, none!

I also don’t want to work 8am till 9pm – 10pm most nights, so as long as I can get cover and am not responsible to get that cover I should be fine!

With regards to holiday/cover I know there are plenty of freelance projectionists out there willing to work (although it wont be cheap they charge around £25per hour for minimum 4 hours).

They do plain on bringing in a junior accounts who they said would also would also splint there time with facilities so that should be some help to me.

And there is also a tech manager who also knows how to run the projectors if need be.

dpassmore wrote: »

It is certainly a niche role you have and as you suggested, the company will likely have some difficulty in filling it. You seem to be in a good negotiating position.

The 'glass half empty' aspect is that by virtue of being such a unique role, the company could use the assumption that you would find difficulty finding a similar role and you may have to take up another position with another organisation (if you can find one) that you will not enjoy, is unsuitable or not compatable - albeit with some money in the bank, but take into consideration the current job market.

We can all advise and make suggestions on this forum and I am sure that you will have taken some of the points raised on board, but it is a decision you will have to make yourself whether you go for the new role.

Hopefully by the time your next meeting, your head will be a little clear and you will have weighed up the pro's and con's but whatever you decide has to be right for you in the long term.

Difficult one I know - and as you stated, I bet your head is spinning.

But also remember, the money isn't everything - especially if any extended working or unsuitable working conditions are going to impact on your family or health.

The thing with my skills is I believe they are very transferable. In my time at the company.

I have gone from office/facilities assistant with reception cover whilst also doing the projectionists job to facilities manager (when I was facilities assistant the facilities manger retired and I was promoted but not given an assistant so basically took on all his rolls/reasonability as well as all my old except the projectionists roll as one was then employed full time) and have gained quite a bit of knowledge in IT (our main IT contact was made redundant last year and 50% of there work load was piled onto me).

I also have a supportive wife who earns a decent salary and if I were to lose my job could survive on her salary alone, just (although I would not want to do that) plus have 6-12 months salary saved. So if I were to be made redundant don’t think it would be tooo much of a problem.