What is the reality of redundancy like?

[coffeeandjuice]

Today we find out if our only income will be taken by redundancy, 1 in 2 chance. For those of you who have been through redundancy what is the reality of it like? How did you get through it? What cuts did you make? Did you affect relationships? Did it give you a new lease of life and turn into a positive thing for you?

It really depends on lots of factors - like why the other person isn't working?? what the likelihood is of finding a new job in this market for both of you as the other person will have likely to step up? What provisions you had in place - eg redundancy insurance? How long any redundancy pay out will keep you afloat?

We started planning for redundancy as soon as we knew it was coming - lots of spreadsheets including one titled "Doomsday Scenario" about what we would cut back and to be honest we started doing that during the consultations period, cancelling sky etc. Updated CVs and started getting in touch with recruitment agencies. What the long stop date was to be back in employment based on how long the redundancy payment would last? What help we might be entitled to via Universal Credit (don't expect much if you don't rent and have a mortgage instead)

Sorry you are facing this.

For me it felt personal. They tell you 'its the job that is made redundant' but it didn't feel that way to me. I didn't reaslie how much I relied on the people I worked day to day with as a support system.

If you get the nod, first thing I would do is to look at what redundancy pay you will get, will the company offer you any support in finding a new job, are there jobs up for grabs you can apply for etc. While you weigh up your options, look at the job market and spruce up your CV. Last time I job hunted it was very different so I had to overhaul my CV to make it competitive. Look at job hunting like a project, it takes time and work.

Good luck.

It was hard going for me but o very quickly found another job so I moved onwards and upwards fast. I think the key is to start really proactive very looking for new work and leave the old one behind emotionally now. Look forward and upwards.

We have just gone through my husband being made redundant. In all honesty, it was terrifying. I only work part time and my wage wasn’t enough to even cover our mortgage and even if I picked up more hours I wouldn’t be able to earn what my husband did. He was on quite a decent wage that I’d never be able to match.
It came out of the blue and so at first we were just really shocked and in denial at first. We thought it must have been a mistake. The company was doing well and the directors were friends of ours.
Once we realised it was happening it was a range of emotions on a bit of a rollercoaster really. Anger, hurt, sadness, fear...we literally faced losing everything and have 2 children to support.
My husband put everything into looking for a new job pretty much straight away. He was so fortunate that he found a job within a couple of weeks. We know others who are still out of work and have been for ages.
At first we cut back in all shopping luxuries and planned meals, we cancelled all non essential payments and memberships and sat down and worked out what we could spend and how long our savings would last.

It has changed my husband considerably. He was a very confident secure character who was a rock in stressful situations. This has shaken him. Now every time he has a stressful day at work he goes into fearing he’s going to lose his job. I have hated watching this happen to him.

However a huge positive is that we have decided to use the savings we didn’t need to use and the redundancy payment to start a small business. We have set up a property business and completed on our first house yesterday and building work starts tomorrow. Hopefully this will work out and my husband will get his confidence back. Maybe one day we’ll be thankful for the opportunity that the redundancy brought.

Another positive was that we really discovered what a great network of friends and family we have. We have never felt so loved and supported. It was a huge blessing. We ended up developing even deeper friendships and have come through the other side knowing that there are those who would just not have let our ship sink.

Another factor that kept me going and I think has helped me move on from the bitterness is that I have a really firm belief in God and that He would provide. I don’t believe he caused the redundancy but I believe He met us in it and walked with us through it. My faith has become a lot stronger as a result of what has happened. I know this is controversial.... but it is my experience of it... and it’s what I believe....

I’m sorry you could be going through this OP.
I really am. It is not easy at all but it isn’t the end. You just have to navigate your way through the bit in the middle. Hopefully people will reach out to you and support you in the same way we were supported.
Sending and hoping that your future is bright whatever the outcome here.

Following ideas here as although not been made redundant, I have been put on a zero hours contract (probably as a way of avoiding redundancy pay). Scary times.

My DH was made redundant a few years ago. It didn’t cause us financial problems, even though he earns a lot more than me, because he found another job quite quickly, but it affected his confidence for a long time afterwards. As others have said, it’s hard not to take it personally. Fingers crossed for you OP.

I knew it would happen to us eventually as functions were being offshored but it was still a kick in the gut when it finally happened. Like being dumped. You grieve and take it personally. It was though the best thing that could have happened and gave me the much needed push to do something else. Turns out I was massively underpaid there too & have never looked back.

Awful. In my case it was personal despite the "the role" is no longer needed bullshit. Same with DH. It's one of the few times I've seen him cry.

I found out I was being made redundant on 1 April and was actually made redundant end of May. I had to have a couple of consultancy calls with HR and my manager then I had to formally accept my redundancy which involved having a solicitor look it over.
As my whole company were wfh over lockdown I didn't get to really say goodbye to anyone which was hard.
I also had to put together a document explaining how everything worked for my boss ( he had only become my boss recently and didn't know me or anything about the office )
I thought I was handling it fine until it really hit me about 3 weeks after I left. They didn't make mass redundancies, I was the only one in our location which felt very personal.
I managed to find a New job within 2 months but it's only part time so my earnings have nose dived. It's good flexibility but low wages. I did pay off all debt and big bills with redundancy money tho so that feels good

I was glad to be made redundant in the end. The stress of worrying about childcare during lockdown was meaning I was losing sleep. I'm lucky in that my husband earns 28k self employed so if we tightened things up we could get by. I've been helping Dh out where I can saving him little bits of money. We also decided it was the perfect time for me to retrain so I'm studying. Hopefully in 8m I'll have new qualifications and be able to get into a better job or go self employed. Not having the stress about childcare has been great, we also have savings as a back up and I do everything I can to save money. I switched electricity suppliers and was refunded £800 and now pay £10 a month less for broadband. Just doing what I can

I’ve been made redundant about three times and I’ve always felt this tremendous sense of freedom. Fortunately I’ve always found other work quite quickly, either permanent or temporary.

I've been made redundant twice. The first time it was prt of quite a large company restructure so there was three months notice and a fairly decent redundancy payment. The worst thing about it was that everyone who was being kept on stopped talking to those who weren't so it was very awkward.

The second time was out of the blue. I worked in a small team of four and they made the two of us that were mothers redundant because neither of us could work every Saturday (we'd offered to work alternate ones but that wasn't good enough for the). They 'restructured' us out and hired a 16 year old that could work every sat for less money. Because we'd only been there 11 months we had no come back. That was tough because there was no payout but I did a bit of freelancing work and then got my next job a few months later.

That eventually lead to the one I'm in now which I absolutely love and earn four times as much in so it was definitely for the best even though I was furious at the time.

Thanks for these responses they were really useful. We found out that we weren't going to be made redundant this time. Which of course is nice news for us but there's no pleasure in knowing other people will be made redundant.

It doesn't surprise me that some people found it a liberating experience and others found it awful. But what I didn't expect was for it to be such a potential knock on confidence and it's sad that redundancy also takes this away too.

These are such funny times; it's like a massive lesson in enjoying in the moment when you can, as the reality is, there's so little of the big stuff we can actually control.

That's good news OP, although as you say it's bittersweet knowing that so many others have been affected.