Redundancy or Unpaid Leave

fdama

I work for an IT consultancy where employees are assigned to various projects for clients within the company. I have been with the company for 7 years. I was released from my last project at end of December last year due to budget cuts on that project and have been unassigned or ‘on the bench’ since January this year. The company gives you 8 weeks to be assigned to billable work after which you will be placed at risk of redundancy. You then have a further 4 weeks to find a billable work and if unsuccessful, redundancy will follow. I am now in these last four weeks and placed at risk of redundancy and will be made redundant on April 6th if nothing changes. So far the resourcing teams within the company have not been able to find me work and neither have I. There are also a number of other people ‘on the bench’ who are also competing with me for roles.

I have had one consultation call with HR two weeks ago and on that call they mentioned there was the option of taking Unpaid Leave. They did not go into the details as they said that they will do so closer to the time. I assume they mean taking unpaid leave until more work that suits my skillset becomes available. But what if there is still nothing available? If I do select unpaid leave, does this mean I will lose the redundancy option if no jobs are available? Financially, I can afford to take unpaid leave for a few months. In fact it would be beneficial to me as I would like to use the time to upskill. What would the consequences of taking this option be? What are the rules around this as I could not find much on the web so far. I have my next consultation on Friday so would like to be prepared with questions that I may have.

 

Thanks.

getmore4less

Once on unpaid what the incentive for them to let you go with any payment?

They can just leave you in limbo untill they find you work or you find your own.

You find your own you would need to resign.

What's the package for 7 Years service?
They would have to give you a further 7 weeks notice pay.

Thrugelmir

If you were to go on unpaid leave would you be prepared to be recalled at short notice?