Redundancy issued after making complaint.

ceefax

Hi

Would love to have some objective thoughts on my situation.

I am/was a design manager my position was to manage a fulltime member of staff and 2 freelancers.

For the past two years my job roles have been slowly eroded due to my managers relationship with me getting worse and worse. My position started to be ignored and due to the way that they wanted to work. This was done informally and my roles were not changed nor was i consulted. This recently came to a head and i complained that I did not know what my job roles were anymore and felt unable to carry out my duties due to the way they worked. Basically the distribution of work and management of work stopped going through me, i was taken from meetings but still expected to manage the projects i knew nothing about. I asked for my roles on numerous occasions but they didn't have them and neither did HR.

So i had a meeting with HR and was told that they were drafting my new roles and going over the issues i raised etc. I heard nothing more.

The employee (not freelancers) i managed then handed in his resignation. At this point they have now reconstructed the heirachy of the department and all work will be distributed from my superior. They are saying therefore my role is redundant as i have no one to manage. They are however re-hiring 2 full time designers and hiring freelancers. They have offered me one of the design jobs at £5k less pay.

However when i look at the job roles it is everything that i already do now and have done for the past 2 years. Except the time management of an employee beneath me.

It appears to me to be a cynical way of getting me to leave. The erosion of duties was not formalised in anyway over the 2 years, it was purely how 2 people in the department wanted to work, and to me appears a very contrived they hope to see the back of me.

I'd just like some opinions on the situation and how to approach either trying to get my full wage for the new position or whether its worth pursuing legally.

Ask any questions you like if its a bit confusing.

Thanks for any help.

getmore4less

Looks to me like they have a point,

All the management stuff you were doing 2 years ago can be or has been done by others so they can remove a layer of management and save money.

Whats the going rate for the position without management resonsibilities?

The test will be the recruitment process and what they have to get new people in at, if they can't get htem cheaper than you then you get to try to keep the money if they can they get three and make you redundant.

What are the freelance rates like?


As a middle manager it is realy important to protect you possition and be proactive at making you job more important rather than less, having let this go on for 2 years might be an indicator you are not realy cut out for this kind of role.

MrRedundant

So what you want is for the managers/project staff to go through you to the staff you manage about what they want and have stuff get lost in translation and so on?

I can see why they have done this; there was a pointless layer of management that was creating extra work and costs that where not necessary; freelance and designers shouldnt need a manager to tell them how to do the job; they need an administrative manager and thats it.

ceefax

thanks for the responses.

I totally get what your saying. I agree entirely with the structure issue. My main roles were simply being a designer, my point is though that i have been told by my manager that the administrative portion of my work was not what he wanted me to do and now using that against me.

There is a back story here which for me confuses things and i don't know where i stand. After complaining about the structure and how the dept works i was told that, my role was NOT to manage my colleagues time, i was there to design and to provide creative management...ie be a guide to less experienced designers. Which i have done. My roles therefore as design manager where...to design and to creatively manage one person as i see it.

In the brief they gave me as to why they are making it redundant it says:

'Design work has changed to include all elements off design....Print and packaging etc, which is different to the design activities undertaken by the design manager role.'

This is the core work i have been doing since day one, so i don't understand this.

it also says:
The prioritisation of work and sign off of work now sits with Senior management.

Since asking about my roles and being told that i was not there to manage peoples time it seems a moot point for then to say this is a reason for making the role redundant.

I endeavored to get official clarification of this change of roles, but this was never received. I was told by my manager that we've been through all this before and he couldnt be bothered. When i complained about this to HR it seems that it has started the ball rolling, allowing them to rewrite roles as they see fit, ignoring the roles i have actually been asked to fulfill by management.

So it seems to me there is a difference between what i have been asked to do by my management and what HR perceive my role to be. My roles not having being officially sanctioned it seems to allow them to rewrite history somewhat.

getmore4less

OK I get it(I think).

What you are saying is that you had what I would call a technical lead type role, overseeing/advising/training the technical and quality aspects of the work done by others.

This is probably worth extra compensation as the skill level is higher.

You need this aspect clarifying, I think forget the project/time management side of things.


You need to make a case that this role is still needed to maintain standards etc. if they say not and you want to stay with the pay cut get clarification you only need to work on your own projects.