Redundancy negotiation tomorrow: advice required

[MINDbuzzing]

Hi all,
i'll try to make this as brief as possible, as this is a little time sensitive.

I have been with my current employer for 11yrs, with the past 6yrs being PAYE.
3yrs ago, i was given a new role and new contract to match.
Since that day, i have NOT been used this this role, despite regular requests from myself, to be given work that matches my contract.
My role should be office based, 4 days per week only. I have been deployed in the field, in lesser roles, but very rarely given any office time, maybe 1-2 days per month at the very most. The office work has never been related to the role in my contract.

My employer called yesterday, to ask me to attend a meeting tomorrow, to discuss making my role redundant.

Now......this company was bought out, 2-3yrs ago and there have been a lot of changes in the workforce since this time, with many leaving and many others being made redundant, so i am not surprised that the company have finally made this call.

I called one of our original company directors last night, to seek his advice.
He told me that from what he has heard (as he is now employed by the company in a senior management role), is that the management team appear to be afraid that i will demand a payout of over £50k and that they don't really know how to deal with me in order to avoid this. He has suggested that i go to the meeting tomorrow, with the plan of telling the company rep that i have taken legal advice & that i've been told that i could hang on and push for £50k plus. He has advised me to say that i am not interested in dragging this out, via solicitors and to suggest a settlement of £20--25k, which he believes will be quite reasonable. As i only work 4 days/wk, my salary is lower than it used to be and i now take home £27kpa. As i was expecting to be offered statutory redundancy (and fully understand that this may be the case), i was not expecting a figure of £20-25k to be possible and until now, had no plans to fight for a package of any kind.

He does not believe that the company will offer me a suitable role, but will offer a redundancy package. He also said, that if i suggested a lower amount, of perhaps £10k, that the company would "be laughing'.

I can only presume that the company believe that they are in breach of contract.

Does this sound right?

Would i be right to follow his advice and suggest coming to an agreement of £25k?

Any advice would be welcomed, as i really do have no clue what i'm doing.


Many thanks.

[ULA]

So, a couple of things to unravel here.

Firstly, I assume that by the role you have been doing over the last three years not being your contracted role means that the duties you are undertaking are completely different from the job description. How forcefully have you asked for the work to match the job description? Despite the role not being as defined it seems you have continued to work undertaking these duties for 3 years?

Other than the issues of the duties you have been performing being more field based rather than office based what other major differences have there been? More importantly has this affected adversely your terms and conditions of employment i.e. salary, holiday entitlement, working hours etc. Sorry for the questions but I am just trying to establish some grounds for breach of contract.

Secondly, I have to raise a concern about the motives of the original company director you spoke to who is now in a senior management role. At the very least he has breached his position of confidentiality and trust with the company given the seniority of role he is in by having the conversation he did with you.

Now in regard to the meeting tomorrow if it is about a redundancy situation then if they follow a fair procedure this will be the start of a consultation process so should be the first of a series of meetings i.e. this should just be a meeting to notify you that your role is at risk of being made redundant, they should ask you to go away and consider ways in which you feel the company could mitigate having to make your position redundant, discuss any suitable alternative roles, detail the process and let you know when there will be a further meeting with you as part of the process. I would suggest that you wait and see what they have to say, my interest would be in effectively what position are they making redundant, the one detailed in your job description or the one you have actually been working to. Based on that response it may provide the “in” to agree an enhancement to statutory redundancy – I assume that your company does not already have an agreement to pay more than statutory.

My advice would be play everything very close tomorrow, take notes of what they say. Do not start demanding a pay-off at this stage and whatever they do offer just say you need to take it away and there is no harm indicating you will be taking legal advice. Then if you want, come back here to let us know how it went.

[MINDbuzzing]

Thank you ULA.

I'll do as you suggested tomorrow. Will keep it close and advise them that i need to take it away for consideration.

Firstly, my office based role would have seen me working a total of 10hrs/day, including my commute. My field based role, generally sees me leaving home between 0400-0600 and getting home between 1700-2000, but this can sometimes be later and regularly takes me away from home for several days at a time. I have a young family and this is why i wanted the office based role, so that i could be home for a sensible time and i certainly did not want to be leaving home so early every morning. I regularly drive for 8-10hrs/day, which is just grinding me down to be honest, but i've managed it.

They company recently forced us all to sign new T&Cs, by threatening redundancy for anybody who did not sign. Eventually, we all signed........or we were told that we'd all signed. We later found out, that an entire department had refused and had even bartered for an increase in their hourly rate!!

I have suffered in the past, with my mental health, but this job has helped to keep me stable in recent years, as it's kept my mind busy. I'm not the militant type and therefore, apart from regularly asking my line manager (who was made redundant before xmas - winning a constructive dismissal claim in the process), for a more suitable role, i have only had one sit down meeting with the company. In this meeting, i was asked to give them a week, as they were creating a new role for me, where i would need to renew my DV security clearance, as it was on a government project...I gave them 3 wks, but nothing changed. The next change, was around 6wks later, when they put me into an office role, where i was told, after just 3 days, that it was going to be too expensive to keep me in that role, as it was a junior project manager role, for which they like to pay less money. From there, i was straight back in the field.

The next lot of field work was carrying out internal audits on our engineers. I carried out this role for approx 3 months, until i heard that they company were looking to employ somebody to carry out these audits long term. I went to speak to the department head, to ask if i could apply for the position. He told me that i would need to move back to a 5 day week, working 2 of them on site in London, with the remainder on nationwide audits and that the money would be less than i currently take home for 4 days. I was also told that unless i had NEBOSH, that i was not going to be qualified for this new hybrid role.

Right before xmas, i heard that one of our other employees had taken the new role, but nobody actually told me. I was just taken off the schedule. Since xmas, i have had 2 weeks on standby, on reduced pay and 1wk covering one of our testing departments. This was actually good fun, as i was working alongside another company, but it was only temporary and this department have no roles available....i've asked.

I have always carried out any role they have put me on, to the best of my ability, even when i have not been trained for it. I have a clean disciplinary record and have always gone above and beyond the hours i'm contracted to do.



This meeting is the first on redundancy. I did receive a phone call from the company this week, informing me of their intent to make my CONTRACTED role redundant. They were quite clear on this.

I've filled pretty much all of the roles that might be available in our company, but i would be VERY surprised if any of these were to be offered, as i've made it clear at every opportunity that i AM NOT a field engineer (i'm really not. I've not got the right skillset for it. I just find it hard to say no when they put me out there) and all of the office based roles are currently maxed out. I'm actually expecting one or two more to be made redundant, as the company are regularly looking to cut out the dead wood, which is pretty much where i currently stand, sadly.

Many thanks again. I will let you know how it goes tomorrow.

[ULA]

Hope the meeting went ok today.

[MINDbuzzing]

Hi ULA,

the meeting went pretty much as i'd expected. The company confirmed that they intend to make my role redundant and that they do not currently have a suitable role for me, unless i am willing to take less money and return to working a 5 day week.

The initial offer is just under £11,000, which includes statutory redundancy, PILON and Holiday Pay. Off the record, they told me that they may be able to give me the majority of this money "tax free".

I was asked what figure I would be happy with and i gave a figure of £25,000, knowing that I will need to compromise on this over the next week or two. I have been thinking about my future this week and i decided that if i were to be made redundant, that i am going to start a new career. I have been a part time sports coach for over 30yrs, coaching for free. The sport that i coach is currently paying professional coaches a fairly decent wage, at a level below mine, so i am going to set myself up as a coaching business and give it my best shot. To set this up, properly, with a few new courses, some equipment, a website, a small marketing budget and a van, will cost me £15-20k, so this is the kind of final settlement i am hoping for.

They have told me that they will not be able to offer £25k, but will see if they can come up with an enhanced redundancy package for me. They also mentioned that if i was able to accept a much lower offer, that they would be able to offer me further employment, as a contractor, on any projects that might be a good fit for me. I do not wish to work for them after everything i've been through over the past few years, so i do not intend to accept this offer. After being let down on my past 2 contracts, i don't actually trust them to call me for any contract work anyway.

The only NEW piece of info that i have from today, was that there is an email, from an ex-director, stating that my role is no longer required and that the company are to re-assign me or make me redundant. This email is apparently two years old. This fits with the way that they have bounced me around the company for so long. My main gripe over this, is that nobody has EVER talked to me about this and until today, i have never actually been told that my role no longer exists. Instead, they have chosen to hide this info, until this week.

Am i being realistic to push for £15-20k, or do you think that i should just suck it up and take whatever offer they come back with next week?

Is there anything in my emails that you think i could use to leverage a settlement in the region that i'm looking for?

Any advice, gratefully received.

[MINDbuzzing]

Just one other thing. As i previously mentioned, they have currently got me on standby, at a reduced rate. I asked them if they could schedule me for work somewhere next week, as being scheduled on "white space" week after week, is demoralising.

I got home tonight, checked my emails and checked the resource schedule, where we find out where we are working each week. They HAVE scheduled me for work next week. Just one day. They have scheduled me for work on FRIDAY. I haven't worked Fridays for 4 years and they know it......my line manager has obviously forgotten this ;-)

[ULA]

Thank you for the update.

To take things in order the redundancy pay first, I presume they have given you a breakdown of the payments due and that they are correct based on length of service, and age. Any pay as a result of the redundancy should be automatically paid free of tax and NI deductions up to the value of £30k. Holiday pay and pay in lieu of notice are subject to tax and NI deductions. These are the arrangements set out by HMRC.

So, the calculation they have given you is the minimum you should expect. I do think there has been a degree of mismanagement about your position in that they gave you a role and contract which they could not effectively provide and you were continually working outside of both. Clearly the issue about your position has been know about for some time as demonstrated by the email you have been made aware of. If you can leverage these mismanagement issues to increase the redundancy payment, then continue negotiating with them.

I know you have said you will not go for the offer of reduced payment which cannot be below your statutory and the provision of contract work and to that I would add that this gives you no security. They would not be obliged to provide you with that work or they could for a short period and then just not contact you again for which you have reduced the value of any enhancements.

On the issue of you being on standby what provision is there in your contract to put you on standby and effectively reduce your hours and pay accordingly? Do you contractually not work on a Fri i.e. your 4 days a week are Mon-Thurs?

[MINDbuzzing]

ULA, thank you.

From the bottom.....Yes, i chose to go down to 4 days, in order to help my wife go back UP to 4 days, as our daughter started pre-school.

Standby - we were forced to sign new T&Cs last year, with the threat of redundancy (or redundancy with re-employment, as we were told) if we didn't sign. These new T&Cs put us on the reduced hours and changed the amount of hours that we are expected to drive for free at the start and end of each day.

The calculations look to match what i expected.

[ULA]

If you went down to 4 days and Fri is not a contracted day then I would just write to your manager pointing this out and ask for your day to be swapped.

Your comments about the standby situation are sending off warning bells with me, even given the new T&C's you were forced to sign. However I am thinking that probably your main concern is making sure you can leave with an enhanced redundancy package in order that you can move on to your new opportunities.

Have they scheduled a further meeting with you?

[MINDbuzzing]

Don't worry about the Friday. I have no intention of working it and have reminded them that i'm not contracted for Fridays and that i can only work them with prior notice & agreement.

As for the next meeting, I have been asked to attend the office on Thursday morning for this.

The good news, is that after pointing out that being on Standby is demoralising, one of the line managers has stepped up and scheduled me for work on Mon-Tue this week.

[ULA]

Thanks for the update and glad to here you are getting some days scheduled to work this week.

If you need any more support before your Thurs meeting then you know where we are, if not please let us know how it goes - best of luck.

[MINDbuzzing]

I will do, thank you.
Is there any value in mentioning the way that they forced the T&Cs upon us?

[ULA]

Your employer needs to follow a fair process to implement a significant change in your terms and conditions if they do not want to face a claim for breach of contract. So, they need to fully consult with you and agree any changes to them. However, if you do not agree the law does recognise that employers have to adapt to changing market conditions, and that sometimes the contract of employment must be varied to reflect this. If they gave given reasonable and due consideration to objections and alternative suggestions that you put forward, but deem those suggestions to be unworkable, then they can terminate your original contract and offer a new one in its place on the new.

So, in regard to the process adopted by your company in changing your terms and conditions, how closely does it match the ideal way to handle these situations as detailed above. However, did you make it clear at the time you were not happy with the changes i.e. by putting this in writing, which would amount to a grievance? If you don’t tell your employer you disagree with a change, this will be taken to mean that you’ve accepted it.

[MINDbuzzing]

That sounds fair enough. To be honest, they did consult with us to a certain extent.
They held a conference call, which we were asked to dial into, listen to proposals and they offer any questions at the end. Sadly, when the company finished their speech, the director asked for questions, said that he couldn't hear anybody on the other end and he hung up.

The new T&Cs dropped my monthly take home from £2450 to £2150-2200, but others were hit worse, as they had are working 5 days per week. The company is trying to make a 40% profit across the board. This is NOT the norm in our industry. Greed drove that change in T&Cs and has driven almost every manpower decision they have made in the past 3 years.

However, i'll leave out any talk about the way the T&Cs were brought in, as it seems like a can of worms.

Thanks again.

[MINDbuzzing]

Was paid my settlement this week. Thank you!