Redundancy advice

musashi10

I was informed yesterday that my job was at risk of redundancy. when I grilled the HR person she said that this meant that my job no longer existed and there would be a period of consulation

Just to give you the facts as I know them.

Have been told that it is due to a departmental review.
There will be a re-allocation of my work to other departments.
The other team member who does the same job as me same salary, but for shorter period of time is not being put under consultation. She does have a different job title (very slightly) and in reality, I think the work will probably be going to her.

I have worked there 2 years and 3 months, have 3 month notice period.

Now they gave me the fact sheet of how they work it all out the payments and they wanted to see me 12 hours after telling me about it for 1st consulatation. I said that wasn't enough time for me to digest it all and we have arranged for next Thursday.

Now today, my boss has come and seen me and has said to see him and the HR women at 5pm for a discussion of a withoutout prejudice offer of payment.

I have a rough idea of what this means, but when I spoke to him he seemed to be saying that this would be the same as the statutory, but the contractual parts in essence regarding notice would be paid upfront tax free + sol fee for looking at the agreement.

I have read other forums and they seem to be saying that there should be an additional ex gratia payment representing employee tribunal court avoidance fees. Is this right?

The other early questions I have is that if I didn't accept and went through consultation they said it would normally take 3 weeks at least. So if I take an early settlement I would forgoe this payment which doesn't seem right.

Bit confused about everything, will wait to see what they say.

Definitely curious as to the reasons for redundancy in more detail as my job a few months ago had more responsibility and I was meant to get a pay rise.

Just want to make sure I'm not being screwed over really.

Jarndyce

You're being screwed over.

Your colleague should also be in the selection pool and there should be proper consultation and a proper process. At the very least you would then at least get the wages for as long as it takes to process.

What they are proposing is a compromise agreement where you get no more money, leave immediately, and sign away any rights to take a claim against them for unfair selection for redundancy. Tell them where to stick it, then go and see a lawyer.

musashi10

Thanks.

When speaking to a work colleague, they seemed to suggest that they could get away with the unfair selection criteria due to the slightly different nature of the other person's job title, even though we do for 4 days out of 5 the same work and have the same pay give or take £500.

Have my meeting at 5pm so will see what the offer is.

musashi10

I guess the only extra money would be that I would get the notice period money upfront and tax free, otherwise I think I would have to take this as monthly pay net of tax and wait 3 months for future employment.

musashi10

Was looking at website for cases where it is not redundancy and it says

The following situations are examples of where the real reason for your dismissal might not be redundancy:

• your employer has recently taken on other people. This could mean that there has not been a reduction in the amount of work to be done
• you're the only person being made redundant, or one of only a few in a large company. This might be a sign that the type of work you do is still needed
• you had a bad relationship with your employer. This might be a sign that you have been dismissed for a reason other than the need to reduce the workforce

And in this case, the other colleague was recently taken on well 3 months ago.
There are only a few redundancies out of over 12000 employees.


And me and my boss did have a disagreement recently about me looking for a new job during work time (not officially reported though)

marybelle01

I agree with Jarndyce (and that's unusual enough ) that I think you may be ebing screwed. But I also think you are reaching in your last post! Taking someone on three months ago doesn't prove that there isn't a redundancy now - all it raises is the question of whether the other person can justifiably be excluded from the pool for selection. It doesn't mean that if they are included they won't get selected! And if there are only a few redundancies, provided they are redundancies then they are redundancies. My employer employs 26000 people and out of those only a handful have actually been made redundant - it doesn't mean they weren't redundant! And frankly, I wouldn't even think of going anywhere on a dispute with your manager over you looking for a new job in work time - for goodness sake you could have been sacked for that, and he didn't even take any formal action against you! So it isn't exactly a "dispute" that you want to highlight - it shows you in a very bad lighht and your manager, who chose to do nothing but have a word, in a very good one!