Promotion promise on hold due to company redundancies

RoseF

Two months ago I had a meeting with my department head regarding my progression, having proved my ability in the role and going above and beyond the job description. My manager agreed and told me he already had plans in place to promote me from the beginning of May. I gave him a signed copy of my development plan as added evidence for sign off with HR and Executive level.

Then a month ago a department within the company was made redundant. This department is seperate to mine but we work closely together. I followed up with my manager to ask whether these redundancies would affect my position and he told me that they legally can not promote me during a period of company redundancies. However I have no doubt that he knew these redundancies were coming when he promised me the promotion. Is he telling the truth? I have heard from friends that they know of people who have been promoted while other people were made redundant at the same time.

Thank you!

Comms69

RoseF wrote: »

Two months ago I had a meeting with my department head regarding my progression, having proved my ability in the role and going above and beyond the job description. My manager agreed and told me he already had plans in place to promote me from the beginning of May. I gave him a signed copy of my development plan as added evidence for sign off with HR and Executive level.

Then a month ago a department within the company was made redundant. This department is seperate to mine but we work closely together. I followed up with my manager to ask whether these redundancies would affect my position and he told me that they legally can not promote me during a period of company redundancies. However I have no doubt that he knew these redundancies were coming when he promised me the promotion. Is he telling the truth? I have heard from friends that they know of people who have been promoted while other people were made redundant at the same time.

Thank you!

As is always the question - is this the sword you wish to fall upon?


Let's say that he is wrong. Lets say he knew that this promotion wouldn't happen. What will you do? - resign and take it to an ET?

[Deleted User]

I don't think a signed development plan will be enough to say it was "in the bag".

BrassicWoman

Redundancy timescales are always very fluid and generally late. Could be he thought it’d all be done and dusted by now.

lincroft1710

You will just have to be patient!

Until the redundancy situation is sorted, no-one will know if it is possible for you to be promoted.

Les79

I don't know of any other rules, and I'm not 100% on this one, but I believe that any woman who is currently on maternity leave must be offered any suitable vacancy if the company has one.

In that respect, there is a possibility that the other department has a serving manager who would not be best pleased to find out that, whilst on maternity leave and being made redundant, you gained a promotion to a comparable position. Big fat ET claim right there.

That is one possible example (I anticipate a "that's not the case" reply to my post), but redundancies can be tricky !!!!!!s for employers (especially when a comparable department exists) and I feel that they just err on the side of caution when it comes to situations like that.

Not strictly being done to shaft you over, and I would recommend that you consider taking the situation at face value and trust said manager until a moment where you can definitively tell what their motivations were.

If your departments were fairly comparable then bear in mind that YOU could have been facing a redundancy situation right now... Companies can be very cut-throat

TBagpuss

It will be very situation specific . It may be that they can't promote you because they will have to consider whether either the role you would be promoted into, or the one you would be promoted out of, would be suitable alternative roles for any of those being made redundant so they may have to consider those , or alternatively postpone making any formal decision about any changes to staffing until the redundancy process is over.

Masomnia

I think Les is probably on the money. There is no hard and fast rule that they cannot promote people when there is a redundancy programme ongoing, but if they are making someone redundant who could do the job you are being promoted into it could really count against them.

Probably a case of waiting for the dust to settle.

getmore4less

depends
If promotion means different job/role then that can cause problems in some circumstances.

IF the job/role stays the same and you are just getting paid/recognised for being better at the same job.

burger flipper to expert burger flipper then there is nothing to stop that promotion payrise.

problem is if the redundancies are partially budget based it does not always look good if jobs are getting cut because on money while others get more money.

But then no one needs to know, they have no obligation to share your new salary or promotion with others.


MY last place of work was like this with the engineering teams most were the same job totally interchangeable you just got paid/title to reflect how much you were worth.