Redundancy and PILON

freakyogre wrote: »

Hi all,

I'll try and cut a long story short here!

Mid January, we were all called in at work and advised that the company was looking to restructure and some of our roles could be made redundant. Shortly after, we received letters to advise if our roles were at risk (mine was).

We then had a 30 day consultation period in which we were advised of the details and breakdown of our redundancy payment should we choose to not apply for a role (or should we not be successful in applying for the new roles). The breakdown included an enhanced redundancy rate (i've not been with the company long enough to get statutory) plus PILON.

I decided to apply for a 'new' role within the company which I was interviewed for and was successful, so my new role started a few weeks ago. We all had the standard 30 days trial period in which to decide if the role was right for us, and the company had that time to decide the same.

This was generous as soon as you apply the normal redundancy and trial are no longer compulsory.
potentially suitable alternatives should be offered


I made the decision this week (within the 30 days) that I didn't want to continue in the new role and that I would like to leave and take the original redundancy offer. As i've not been in this situation before and was unsure on the process, I didn't really know how my notice period would work, but I was told that I had to work my minimum notice period of one month. After receiving my letter, I noticed that PILON wasn't mentioned at all - I understood that the offer would remain the same as before I took on the new role as a trial.

Amongst this happening, the company also decided to extend all the trial periods for a further 30 days. I was offered this option when I made my decision to leave, but I decided that it wouldn't help matters for me.
(from what I gather, they're not actually allowed to do this part way through the process, but please correct me if i'm wrong).

trial periods can be as long as needed often it can be to give more training.
Sounds like there may be something else going on could be they still have too many people and need to get rid of more but they don't need to extend the trial they can just make more redundant.

Today I asked to speak to HR with regards to the PILON as from what I understood, other people who chose not to apply for any other role weren't expected to work their notice. I wanted to know why it was different now.

It was explained that as I had taken on a new role, they now had to find cover as I was leaving and that the same rules of PILON don't apply for us. The people who decided to go beforehand didn't have a role (their roles were made redundant along with ours, however, they could have applied for something else had they chosen to).

I wasn't overly happy and was advised that I could speak to the CEO if I wanted to, so I asked for this. The conversation went along the same lines as earlier in the day; it was explained that the company cannot pay me a months PILON and then pay someone else to cover my role. I appreciate this from a business point of view, but to me, that's really not my problem.

I explained that nothing has been made clear with regards to this throughout the process and I really wasn't happy, but I didn't feel I had a say in the matter. I feel that because everyone else has had their trial period extended, i'm basically continuing in a role I don't want because I have to stay on.

I understand that in a 'normal' situation, you work your notice period, but this is a situation that they have put us in, it wasn't a choice we made.
I asked if I could reduce my notice period and it was discussed that they would try, depending on the cover they can get, but would update me, so I feel a bit in limbo with it all. I'm more than happy to work a reasonable notice period to ensure handover is completed, but I feel that 1) a month is unnecessary and 2) I should still be entitled to the PILON regardless.


I would hugely appreciate any advice on this situation as I don't know whether to pursue it at the moment. I have had a quick chat with ACAS this evening just to get a bit more information, but any additional help would be great. Thank you in advance