alternative job offer - though not actually been offered redundancy!?

wkp

Employed by company for 6 yrs 8 months for 16hrs per week worked over two days as a customer service advisor.
Employers have told me i am not entitled to one month trial - as employer says i have not been made redundant - the job has...
Long before interviews were commenced we were informally told by various managers that if we did not apply for alternative job offer then we would in effect be resigning and that to be considered to go into the redundancy pool we had to apply.
I commented this was stupid as i didn't want the job and he laughed and said that i would probably be the one to get it! We all laughed as there was a few of us in the office then as it was lunchtime.
23/3 i was provisionally offered an alternative position - 20hrs - i said no couldn't do 20 hrs due to family commitments and they came back to me offering 16 hrs. The days worked could be completed over 2 days but it would include every other Saturday. (I didn't work Saturdays in old position) plus the new position was going to be more technical based rather than customer focused. My previous role was 80% customer care and 20% technical - as others were far better at that side of things and for 6 yrs 8 months it suited my employer and myself for this deviation from the normal customer service advisor role...We were told this to be the case back in December.
I provisionally accepted this role thinking i could trial it for 4 weeks and see how i got on. When they decided who the other part time site assistant (new role's title) was we were shown the new rota. They changed my hours and days from Wednesday/Thursday each week=16 hrs to:- 1 week Wednesday/Thursday=16 hrs and 2nd week all day Saturday Thursday mornings and Friday afternoons= totaling 16 hrs.
Well obviously i raised strong objections but begrudgingly said i would try it for 4 weeks.
Not until the 4/May have they told me that i am not entitled to use the 4 week trial. My employer's argument is they have done everything by the book and that i should not have bothered to apply if i did not want the job.I did research on the internet about redundancy and everywhere i looked it was saying about the legal right to a 4 week trial and it even says that in my employer's company Q&A's section on their intranet. But they tell me this is only applicable if i had received notice of redundancy and i had not.
I am still having 121's with manager and HR but all my employer keeps reiterating is i should not have applied if i didn't want the job! not very helpful really!
Is it worth my while instigating a grievance in my situation?

SarEl

I am afraid that you should have done the research before you did or agreed to anything, not after. The employer is correct. If (and that isn't clear from your post) you were placed at risk, then it is up to the employer to identify any suitable alternative vacancies - you don't "apply to be put in a redundancy pool", you are already in an "at risk pool". But either way, you applied for this position, and so "suitable alternative vacancy" doesn't come into it. By applying - rather than waiting for the company to say that they have a possible suitable alternative vacancy as an option to avoid redundancy, you have asked for the position. If you turn it down they could refuse redundancy payment, saying that you have resigned. And I think they may actually have legal cause to do so, based on what you have said.

It's always worth raising a grievance, but I am afraid that in law you are in a very weak position - they have conned you as to what your rights are / were and you fell for it. They won't ever admit they did, you can't prove they did, they will claim you misunderstood, and in the end I am sorry to say that it is an employees responsibility to know their rights and not the employers to inform them of them.

wkp

sorry i have not made my position clear- THEY told us all we were all at risk of redundancy as 350 jobs nationwide were to be axed - THEY told us all that we had to apply for every position that was available or otherwise we would not be eligible for consideration of the redundancy pool? even if we did not want a job? and i questioned this information at the time with management as it seemed a pointless exercise? But again he just repeated what he had already said...

isplumm

Hi,

What evidence do you have that redunacy was an option - I would look at the direct gov website - also contact union if you have one ... i don't think they can do what they are doing ...

Remember that if you took redunacy it will not be very much ... 6 weeks @ 6 years (if over 45 will be more) - check the above website for more info.

Mark

getmore4less

wkp wrote: »

sorry i have not made my position clear- THEY told us all we were all at risk of redundancy as 350 jobs nationwide were to be axed - THEY told us all that we had to apply for every position that was available or otherwise we would not be eligible for consideration of the redundancy pool? even if we did not want a job? and i questioned this information at the time with management as it seemed a pointless exercise? But again he just repeated what he had already said...

I thought it was very clear, you applied for a different job and got it, so you are not redundant.

They lied to you about having to apply for jobs

wkp

Isplumm -
i have a company headed letter dated 28th January 2100 which includes the paragraph as follows: -
"Starting 0n 17th January, all staff at risk of redundancy will be having one to one meetings with their line manager. This has already happened for some staff, and will be continuing over the next few weeks. Please ask your manager if a meeting hasn't been organised for you yet."

I had my first meeting the 26th of January -

SarEl

getmore4less wrote: »

I thought it was very clear, you applied for a different job and got it, so you are not redundant.

They lied to you about having to apply for jobs

Yes, this is the (slightly) blunter version! It does not matter a jot whether you have a letter saying that you were at risk of redundancy - if you are at risk then it is the employers responsibility to identify suitable alternative jobs if they exist. The minute you apply for a job off your own bat you accepted that job and all it's conditions as a suitable alternative for you, and when an offer was made you were obliged to take it. Otherwise you were resigning, not being made redundant. And with no right to a trial.

wkp

SarEl wrote: »

Yes, this is the (slightly) blunter version! It does not matter a jot whether you have a letter saying that you were at risk of redundancy - if you are at risk then it is the employers responsibility to identify suitable alternative jobs if they exist. The minute you apply for a job off your own bat you accepted that job and all it's conditions as a suitable alternative for you, and when an offer was made you were obliged to take it. Otherwise you were resigning, not being made redundant. And with no right to a trial.

'I did not apply for a job off my own bat' - a manager told us all to apply because if we did not, any entitlement to possible redundancy would be jeopardized as we would be in effect be resigning? I never went looking for another position they benchmarked us etc - and then offered the provisional new post, which i thought i could accept on a month's trial? as it was slightly different to original job ...

getmore4less

wkp wrote: »

'I did not apply for a job off my own bat' - a manager told us all to apply because if we did not, any entitlement to possible redundancy would be jeopardized as we would be in effect be resigning? I never went looking for another position they benchmarked us etc - and then offered the provisional new post, which i thought i could accept on a month's trial? as it was slightly different to original job ...

The problem is they lied to you, and that would probably be the basis for any grievance.

The paper trail seems to be you applied for new jobs and got one.

From first post

But they tell me this is only applicable if i had received notice of redundancy and i had not.

It is not clear from that if you were at risk or not, there are 3 steps, at risk,consult, on notice.
Did you get put at risk of redunancy or not?

To have a trial period you would have to be at risk of redundancy.

Not sure if at risk can be done verbaly, it if can you would need to get others to back up the claim you were at risk.

Even then the problem then is that you applied for the post which unless your application specifialy said you would only consider the job as a potential suitable alternative with a trial I think you lose the right to the trial, always better to get the employer to offer you the job as asuitable aternative then accest with a trial, apllying implies accepting it as suitable.

SarEl

In actual fact the right to a trial period only applies if you have been made redundant - which definitely is not the case here. "At risk" is meaningless in law - it simply means that you have been formally told that you might be made redundant. So even if the OP was formally at risk, unless she had been selected for redundancy then the right to the trial period does not apply. But that isn't really the point here. The point is that the OP applied for the job of her own free will. She may indeed have been lied to about having to seek an alternative job - but even if she could prove that, the responsibility for knowing her rights is hers and not the employers. The law takes no account of the fact that someone does not know, or receives incorrect advice, about their rights. So the situation is no different than if the OP had been at risk (assuming they were) and had applied for a job with the company down the road. The OP had not been made redundant and therefore had no "redundancy rights". I realise that this isn't "fair", but the law assumes that employees are aware of, or able to find out about, their rights, and to act accordingly. So in applying for the job the OP is assumed to want the job and therefore accepts it. Proving the employer lied (or gave mistaken advice) would not help, as the employer is not responsible for giving employees legal advice on their position.

getmore4less

Thanks, interesting.

I think this clarifies something for me on timings that I had not appreciated before.

Wait for notice before getting involved in alternaive rolls unless you realy want one of them.

Seems a lot of employers try to get people to apply/accept position prior to or during consultation when they use the all jobs have changed apply for the jobs approach to redundancies.

What they should do(from an employee perspective that is not 100% happy with the jobs on offer) is say all jobs have gone issue redundacy notices and then offer the positions or ask people to apply.


What is the legal term for the time between being told you may be made redudant and actualy getting notice of terminantion where this period is required in law?