to think that we don't need employers to kick us while we're down...

[JustOneMoreBiscuit]

1 friend made redundant while recovering (thankfully) from life threatening condition.
1 friend made redundant despite hard work/ dependent family.
3 friends left work due to stress in the workplace.

We get up every miserable day and go to work, see the decision makers day in day out. Talk about your upcoming holidays/ how family are... And then when it comes down to it you're just a number and don't matter. Bye bye.

I realise in the big wide world these things happen and have to be dealt with, but seriously there is such a thing as timing. I don't expect struggling companies to carry people, just to show a bit of respect. After all, the people running these 'companies' are people too. Where is the empathy!?!?

Yes, the majority of employees are numbers. Many people do not realise this.
Also, people are very often made redundant because their face just doesn't fit.

I was a PA for a long time and worked for many bosses in many companies (large and small). I've heard the conversations that go on behind closed doors and at times it wasn't nice. Bosses generally view business in terms of bottom line not people.

It's the reason why I am now self employed.

Outraged- that's a sad tale. :( but

Edam -

Aaargh silly phone!

Outraged- I'm pleased you can still say she was lovely and understood her reasons.

Edam- why is it always the slippery ones...

Ck- a couple of years back a company I know of relocated all it's employees over seas on pain of redundancy. That side of the business went under and all came home to continue as before!

And another thing...

The news yesterday that the Tories are pushing to introduce ways to make redundancy easier for companies to implement is a joke. Companies have no trouble making people redundant. They should be making it harder not easier.

Rant over

Good for you augustajones. Definitely the way forward!

You wouldn't get me one while your their would you? Didn't realise how much I am really bothered by this till now. Need to sit in a dark room for a bit!

There not their.. hate it when people do that!!

YANBU. 9 years of loyal employment meant nothing when I was selected for redundancy 3 years ago. Boss was American, based in the States and I know he didn't like me being part-time after maternity leave (in spite of returning early). I also know he could have pulled the trigger at any point in the year before or after. So why do it whilst I was in the middle of my buying a house with DH, which he knew? (Luckily we still made it work, somehow).

I was just a number at the end of the day.

Jinsei, i cannot believe that it is worse for you making someone redundant than the person being made redundant. that's a very strange thing to say. you wake up the next day with a job and a pay packet, the other person is going out into who knows what situation. you might feel a little guilty but you will soon forget the person who is jobless and move onto your next target (financial or human)

Thank you Biscuit. One sugar or two?

Hasten to add, that I too was made redundant five months after I had bought my first flat (on my own). I had even jokingly said to my boss, "Now you're not going to make me redundant any time soon, are you?". Thankfully for me, he totally screwed it all up and I ended walking away with 3 months money tax free. I landed another job within a few weeks for more money. :)

Jinsei, i cannot believe that it is worse for you making someone redundant than the person being made redundant. that's a very strange thing to say. you wake up the next day with a job and a pay packet, the other person is going out into who knows what situation. you might feel a little guilty but you will soon forget the person who is jobless and move onto your next target (financial or human)

I understand where you're coming from, and I am not saying that it's necessarily worse in my position, but I believe it can be more stressful. It may be my weakness, but I cannot simply forget and move on as easily as you might suggest - I do care about the staff in my team, and I find the responsibility a massive burden. Yes, of course I know I'm lucky to still have a job (for the time being), but I actually walked out of a previous job as I could not go through with making redundancies that I felt were fundamentally unnecessary. So in that particular situation, being without a job was better than having to implement those awful decisions. In my current job, I don't think I will have any choice.

Don't get me wrong, I know how shit redundancy can be. My DH was made redundant last year, and it has been a massive blow to his confidence and self-worth etc. He hasn't been able to find a job since then that uses his experience or skills, and he is earning rubbish money in a PT stop-gap job that he hates. Maybe the people who decided to let him go gave a shit, maybe they didn't. But I have certainly been massively stressed about this kind of thing in the past, to the point that it has made me quite ill. And I know others who have felt exactly the same.

My point was not to argue that the decision-makers have a harder time, and I'm sorry if it came across that way. I certainly don't mean to belittle the experience of anyone who has been made redundant. I merely wanted to say that not all of those on the other side of the table are heartless shits, and nor do we take decisions lightly. Many of us do genuinely care, but sometimes we have to take shitty decisions that we wish we didn't have to. You may not see us crying our eyes out about it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen behind closed doors.

I was made redundant after 14 years, a week after we were all given (unnecessary) Blackberries and they announced new computers for everyone. That hurt, knowing there was money "in the pot" but they didn't use it to try to save our jobs

Jinsei - I agree with you.
Good Managers do care and are well aware of what it will mean for an individual who they have to make redundant.
A friend of mine who is a senior Manager says he cannot wait to retire ASAP because his whole job these days consists of moving from place to place telling people they are going to lose their jobs. He compared it to feeling like a Doctor must feel when they have to tell someone "there's nothing more we can do for you".
While that may seem a bit dramatic, I understand because he realises that for the individual concerned, it is a bit like a breavement. The way of life they have known, their future hopes etc are gone in an instance.
As Jinsei says, just because the Manager is not weeping at the other side of the desk, doesn't mean they have no feelings about it.
It's hard in the workplace these days for most people regardless of how it sometimes seems.

Instant not instance.

As an ex manager, I did really care about the people I helped reach their potential at work.
When the company was in dire financial trouble we had to let people go, and that was that.

It was hard to break up the teams we had built over the years, and I took a salary hit to make payroll, but in the end we downsized.

And yes we went for a meal after the hard decisions and the downsizing days - it's in the interests of the company that directors meet up and discuss things outside office hours.

well, you must all be the loveliest managers, the ones i know have put people out of work without a backward glance. while you and the directors are out eating and making decisions on behalf of the company, the ex employee is eating shit down at the jobcentre. oh, also be aware that in future you are not to expect one second of loyalty (or 'teamwork' bollocks) from workers when the economic situation picks up.

1 friend made redundant despite hard work/ dependent family.

Hard work fair enough, but whether you have dependents should absolutely not be taken into account when considering redundancies. That in itself is a kind of discrimination.