sham [purposely engineered] redundancy ?

twisterzzz

I have 4 years of service, handed in the notice "on risk of redundancy" notice and told that the my role will cease to exist [I'm the only one performing the role in the company] and as such I'm no longer required to work any further from immediate effect. In other words its game over message as there are slim to none chances to avoid the redundancy.

However since then I've been closely monitoring and observed that the primary objective of my role is being offloaded and performed by another colleague [to someone with managers personal preference over myself] and the role and its responsibilities still exist and being performed exactly as they did before.

I strongly believe & backed up by some evidence that the redundancy process is being fabricated and engineered to target myself, my question is -

Can I company say that role X is being ceased and person holding that role is being laid off. While company immediately offloads the duties of that role to someone else so in essence the role does exist however been merged and given to someone else with a different job title ?

Any other ideas how I should persue this would be appreciated.

getmore4less

YEs they can,
If there is a need for a reduced workforce and they can achieve that by redistributing the that that is ok.

if all the work is going to one person and they still do their own job then that is clear you were both underutilized.

They can also reduce the other persons work give them yours and make you redundnant, often refered to as Bumping.

twisterzzz

Given that the role will cease to exist whilst the lay off is being fabricated to replace me whilst the duties of the role do not change at all, is there a case to fight here ?

I feel massively let down as its purely down to managers personal preferences and in my opinion the redundancy process is being misused here. Anyone agrees ?

asajj

I don't think I can agree, sorry. Even if you think there is a case, you need to prove it. As said above, if one person can do both their own job and yours, that means there was one too many employee. You feel let down as you were the one chosen for redundancy and I understand that. However if it was other way around, would you still say the same ?

You may ask them for the selection criteria though.

molerat

Tasks required by role A are being carried out by person A
Tasks required by role B are being carried out by person B
The tasks of role A are now being consolidated within role B, role A is now redundant.
Whether the actual work is still being carried or not out is irrelevent.
As to whether person A or person B should go, that is another argument.

twisterzzz

asajj wrote: »

You feel let down as you were the one chosen for redundancy and I understand that. However if it was other way around, would you still say the same ?

You may ask them for the selection criteria though.

That's exactly my point, there was no selection criteria. They just made my role redundant and moved my tasks to another role, whilst they could have done the other way around too. i.e., kept my role and moved the other roles tasks to myself whilst making the other role redundant.

twisterzzz

molerat wrote: »

Tasks required by role A are being carried out by person A
Tasks required by role B are being carried out by person B
The tasks of role A are now being consolidated within role B, role A is now redundant.
Whether the actual work is still being carried or not out is irrelevent.
As to whether person A or person B should go, that is another argument.

Exactly, isn't an employer supposed to justify what was the rational behind making role A redundant and why did they NOT make role B redundant ?

I know my argument about sham redundancy is pointless until unless I can prove employer have acted unfairly and that's what I'm trying to discuss here, i.e., what would be the right questions to challenge an employer on during consultation meetings.

getmore4less

If everything you did has gone to B and everything B does you could do then you could ask why there was not a pooling of your roles and a selection process.

Did you not feel underutilized?

twisterzzz

getmore4less wrote: »

Did you not feel underutilized?

Not massively underutilized, but I'm sure one person can do both roles [Role A and B] especially if you can compromise a little on quality of work which is what company really wants in the name of cost cutting.

Yes going to ask why there was no pooling and a selection criteria, and why other person wasn't even put on risk.

TBagpuss

It sounds as though this is not a sham redundancy, the issue is that you conside that the selection criteris and the definiation of the pool of employees at risk were not fair and reasonable.

It is difficult for anyone here to comment on that because we don't know all the details of the roles, what the selection criteria were etc.

It is possible that the process was fair even if there was an additional agenda based on personal preference at play.
It is also possible that there are factors which you are not aware of which may have influenced the decision making process.

I think you can legitimately query why, as on the face of it Roles A and B are being merged, why there has not been selection process with you and the other person both in the 'pool', and the choice made on the basis of fair criteria. BUT if you do, you may well still find that they produce some objective selection criteria and select you.

twisterzzz

TBagpuss wrote: »

I think you can legitimately query why, as on the face of it Roles A and B are being merged, why there has not been selection process with you and the other person both in the 'pool', and the choice made on the basis of fair criteria. BUT if you do, you may well still find that they produce some objective selection criteria and select you.

I would happily accept if they decide to run a selection criteria.

Thanks for your input, I will certainly question why the other role wasn't impacted.