Redundancy help 4 February 2021 at 9:13AM in Redundancy & redundancy planning 10 replies 867 views

xox-lozzy

My mum has been working at a supermarket for 39 years. She is now at risk of redundancy. she is currently on a 29 hour a week contract. They have been told to apply for jobs that were released last week. The jobs released last week were all 12 hour a week jobs with terrible overnight hours nothing like her current contract. She has been told if she doesn’t apply for one of these jobs she’s ruling herself out of redundancy. She has had no formal one to one with anyone to talk her through the process. 

Can anyone advise her rights if she doesn’t apply for a new job as they are not suitable. 

We are confused as to what to advise her to do. 

Thrugelmir

An informal conversation is the first step. She should explain why it's not suitable. Asking the employer to explain why the reasons given aren't acceptable. 

Xbigman

The situation is simple. Your mother has a job which may be made redundant. Her employers can make her redundant or offer her alternative employment. There is no requirement to apply for anything, the employer has a duty to offer the alternative job role if one is available. Your mother can reject the alternative role if its not suitable (and a 60% hours drop plus moving to nights at her age sounds to me like it isn't suitable).   
Employers, especially large employers, love getting staff to apply for jobs. The minute your mother applies for a job she can't then claim its not suitable.
Anyone who tells her she will lose redundancy rights by not applying is wrong. If there were alternative jobs available for everyone, and those jobs were either suitable or of marginal suitability then she might be pushed into applying as the pragmatic alternative to unemployment. But that isn't the case here. 

To be clear, my advice is not to apply for anything and stand her ground. 
Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer.


Darren 

thebrexitunicorn

The post above is correct. She doesn’t have to apply for any post.  The new roles are unlikely to be a suitable alternative for her (for the reasons given) so even if one was offered and she refused it she should still get redundancy.  She would be entitled to 12 weeks notice and the redundancy payment would be thirty weeks pay, tax free.  

xox-lozzy

Xbigman said:

The situation is simple. Your mother has a job which may be made redundant. Her employers can make her redundant or offer her alternative employment. There is no requirement to apply for anything, the employer has a duty to offer the alternative job role if one is available. Your mother can reject the alternative role if its not suitable (and a 60% hours drop plus moving to nights at her age sounds to me like it isn't suitable).   
Employers, especially large employers, love getting staff to apply for jobs. The minute your mother applies for a job she can't then claim its not suitable.
Anyone who tells her she will lose redundancy rights by not applying is wrong. If there were alternative jobs available for everyone, and those jobs were either suitable or of marginal suitability then she might be pushed into applying as the pragmatic alternative to unemployment. But that isn't the case here. 

To be clear, my advice is not to apply for anything and stand her ground. 
Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer.


Darren 

Thank You this was also my understanding also. She hasn’t applied for a job so we will see what happens. They have now given her a formal one to one meeting date to discuss and we will go from there. 

getmore4less

No suitable alternative is the way to deal with this whenever they bring up you have to apply.

Steve182

I feel so sorry for people put through this kind of treatment by large corporations. I've worked for small companies all my life where staff are treated as valuable team members. We hate having to let people go for commercial reasons and when we have no choice we almost always pay more than the statutory minimum redundancy pay. We would never try worming our way out of paying redundancy by offering crap alternative jobs for people to apply for.

lincroft1710

Steve182 said:

I feel so sorry for people put through this kind of treatment by large corporations. I've worked for small companies all my life where staff are treated as valuable team members. We hate having to let people go for commercial reasons and when we have no choice we almost always pay more than the statutory minimum redundancy pay. We would never try worming our way out of paying redundancy by offering crap alternative jobs for people to apply for.

The employer is trying to retain staff wherever possible which is better than tossing them on to the redundancy scrapheap. This will obviously mean that jobs which are offered may not be the employee's first choice. But it is a job. Don't start believing that all small companies are model employers, there are plenty out there who have little or no regard for their employees.

xox-lozzy

Thank you all for your responses. She was made redundant due to no sufficient comparable job. She is currently working her final 3 months and the redundancy money buys her a little bit of time to find another job which will be difficult in the current climate. I am going to create a CV for her and try to teach her to be more computer literate to help her stand the best chance. 

MrFrugalFever

Xbigman said:

The situation is simple. Your mother has a job which may be made redundant. Her employers can make her redundant or offer her alternative employment. There is no requirement to apply for anything, the employer has a duty to offer the alternative job role if one is available. Your mother can reject the alternative role if its not suitable (and a 60% hours drop plus moving to nights at her age sounds to me like it isn't suitable).   
Employers, especially large employers, love getting staff to apply for jobs. The minute your mother applies for a job she can't then claim its not suitable.
Anyone who tells her she will lose redundancy rights by not applying is wrong. If there were alternative jobs available for everyone, and those jobs were either suitable or of marginal suitability then she might be pushed into applying as the pragmatic alternative to unemployment. But that isn't the case here. 

To be clear, my advice is not to apply for anything and stand her ground. 
Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer.


Darren 

Not quite correct there Darren, the whole reason redundancy can be done on a large scale is due to either a job role erasure or a change of 33.3% or more to the role itself. The new job roles, which will I’m sure be more than 33.3% different to the current, should be accompanied with a ‘trial period’ by which redundancy is still on the table.

if the OP’s mum does nothing, then she will be served 30 days termination of contract notice and made redundant. during the notice period, the employer may provide PILON or Gardening leave depending on nature of the role. During the notice period the employer MUST provide adequate paid leave for employees to job hunt and attend interviews, this is not a lot of time though.

anything over £30,000 is subjected to tax and may require sign off from a solicitor.

i have been through a management restructure with a large supermarket and chose not to apply for any positions and I made myself redundant so I have first hand experience (2018) of the processes and procedures that took place with the large scale redundancy process within that company.

getmore4less

MrFrugalFever said:

Xbigman said:

The situation is simple. Your mother has a job which may be made redundant. Her employers can make her redundant or offer her alternative employment. There is no requirement to apply for anything, the employer has a duty to offer the alternative job role if one is available. Your mother can reject the alternative role if its not suitable (and a 60% hours drop plus moving to nights at her age sounds to me like it isn't suitable).   
Employers, especially large employers, love getting staff to apply for jobs. The minute your mother applies for a job she can't then claim its not suitable.
Anyone who tells her she will lose redundancy rights by not applying is wrong. If there were alternative jobs available for everyone, and those jobs were either suitable or of marginal suitability then she might be pushed into applying as the pragmatic alternative to unemployment. But that isn't the case here. 

To be clear, my advice is not to apply for anything and stand her ground. 
Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer.


Darren 

Not quite correct there Darren, the whole reason redundancy can be done on a large scale is due to either a job role erasure or a change of 33.3% or more to the role itself. The new job roles, which will I’m sure be more than 33.3% different to the current, should be accompanied with a ‘trial period’ by which redundancy is still on the table.

if the OP’s mum does nothing, then she will be served 30 days termination of contract notice and made redundant. during the notice period, the employer may provide PILON or Gardening leave depending on nature of the role. During the notice period the employer MUST provide adequate paid leave for employees to job hunt and attend interviews, this is not a lot of time though.

anything over £30,000 is subjected to tax and may require sign off from a solicitor.

i have been through a management restructure with a large supermarket and chose not to apply for any positions and I made myself redundant so I have first hand experience (2018) of the processes and procedures that took place with the large scale redundancy process within that company.

They had been there 39 years minimum statutory notice would be 12weeks( 84days) notice of termination.