Not furloughed but asked to accept pay reduction

[okayokaywhatsnext]

They’re asking staff at different pay points to accept between 10-30% reduction for initial 3 month period to protect company’s future. They’ve made clear it’s voluntary but anyone who says no has to have a meeting with an HR senior and a professional senior. The board have apparently all accepted a 30% reduction. We can’t afford it but am I being selfish in not accepting? We could afford losing the job even less, I suppose.

It's awful - but will your job still be there in 3 months if you don't?

Hmm do you work for quite a fancy furniture company? We’ve been asked the same (not my department but there was an announcement made recently along the same lines). If you’re not able to afford it and they have specifically advised that it is voluntary then they cannot force you by any means

Dh has had to do this. They need to keep working (from home) to have any hope of the business still being there when this ends. If they’re not available for the odd client query the clients will find somewhere else to deal with and not come back.

But there’s next to no money coming in.

If you’re furloughed you’ll lose 20% but you’re obviously not having to work (but you can’t legally get other paid work).

Can’t understand why they don’t furlough, it would be more economically viable for them.

Could you ask for a mortgage holiday which might mean you can take a paycut? Not ideal I know.

Some companies won’t recover from furlough. I’m sure if this business thought they could then they’d do it as it would obviously in the short term be better financially.

DH has had to do this as his work have cashflow issues but need him to work at 100%.

Everyone junior to his level has been furloughed.

I would want to be very sure that when this is over, if conditions improve for the company that repaying this money to employees will be prioritised over any dividends or other non-essential payments.

But if you can't afford it then that will have to accept that.

I think you've made a typo @SlipSlidin, you meant you can get other paid work with a different employer as long as it's not during your normal work time.

Ten percent reduction is better than furlough pay and if continuing to work allows the company to carry on whereas it might fold if everyone is furloughed it is understandable. You say you can't afford ten percent reduction but you can't afford twenty percent (furlough) and no job in three months even more surely?

We've been asked the same at my work because of cashflow and they have already furloughed people where they can. We can't really afford it but at the same time I don't want to risk the company folding and losing my job :-(. We have been told that if we do take the reduction then they will consider 1 or 2 additional days holiday later in the year as compensation. Although it is very frustrating that they are topping up the 80% for people furloughed so they are not losing out.

My dh’s company has furloughed juniors who can’t wfh and the rest are taking a paycut depending on salary.
I guess if you’d rather be furloughed on 80% of pay you can request that instead.
But although it has to be voluntary I don’t think you can go in and say “I want my full salary” when nobody else is getting that.
When you say you “can’t afford” a cut is that taking into account all the possible government help (eg mortgage holiday)?

We’ve been asked to accept a 20% cut in pay and hours (large charity so we’ve lost ~25% of our projected income for the year). We’ve been told that if anyone refuses, they’ll be dismissed and rehired on a new contract paying 80% of their previous pay.

HR are now making noises about furloughing whole teams (including mine) so I suspect that’s the next step. And frankly, I will be amazed if I still have a job at the end of this whole process.. as I’m in my mid-50s, I’m extremely worried about my prospects of getting a new job in the future

@okayokaywhatsnext Surely losing your job has got to be worse?

We’ve been told that if anyone refuses, they’ll be dismissed and rehired on a new contract paying 80% of their previous pay

Fuck! surely thats not legal? dismissal? make sure you keep records of this

It sounds like they are doing the best they can do to keep afloat. If you can’t afford it then you just need to say so I think.

We are spending far less money than we do normally as we’ve no travel costs, after school activities or leisure.

If you refuse to take the paycut, expect to be first out the door when the redundancies start. Harsh but the truth. At a previous job, the employee who queried why the free fruit was being cancelled was first out the door when we had to make redundancies.

DHs company has done this too however they've also done it with an accompanying drop in working hours so in effect his salary is the same per hour but he's being asked to work less hours (from home). It's better than him being furloughed though plus he's looking at claiming back a chunk of his train ticket which should cover a chunk of that.

DH has had to take a 25% reduction in pay and given 6 weeks holiday (not in one clump) to take between now and September - which he's unlikely to be able to do (at least all of it) because the majority have been furloughed and they're on a skeleton staff.

We've accepted it because it still means he's got a job and, although not directly, he's in the travel industry and who knows to what extent it'll recover and when.

DH has had to do this, again his organisation has cash flow problems but still needs to be operating full time (or as it’s coming to his busy time, more than his full time contractual hours). It has been made clear that if he didn’t take the pay cut (and the whole organisation didn’t), there’d be redundancies but it’s still worded as voluntary. Things you want to check before agreeing, that if this situation resolved itself before 3 months then normal pay conditions will be returned and should redundancies happen, you will be expecting redundancy payment at your full wage. You should also sign on the provision that you will reconsider their terms in 3 months. A few people at DH’s work have sought legal advice but all have accepted the decision.

When you say you can't afford it, how badly can you not afford it?

By which I mean do you have savings you could use but would rather not, are there any areas of spending you could cut back on, could you ask for a mortgage or a rent holiday, do you have a credit card you could use to help bridge the gap?

Obviously if you don't have savings and you're using up every single penny of his wages on absolute essentials and you can't defer any bills then there's no wiggle room.

But I'd really be exploring every avenue before saying no. Like you say, if the company goes under and your DH has no job you'll be able to afford that even less.

I think now is the time employers and employees to be as flexible as we can be in order to make sure jobs are still there in a few months. None of this is ideal, and nobody asked for it. What savings are you making by not going out, car parking and travel, etc? Lots of jobs will be lost, and many of them will never return. It’s going to be a really tough job market out there when we get back to the new ‘normal’. If you can’t afford the full amount you’re being asked, make an offer based on what you can afford.

My husband is on 15% cut and the rest of the staff are the same whilst this goes one. The company will not survive otherwise. It's not the type of company that can shut down then pick up where they left off. The work needs to be done. On a plus side they have said that they hope this is temporary whilst this is going on - maybe you could ask the same for your job?

@coconuttelegraph

No I didn’t make a typo.

I’ve been furloughed, my contract stipulates it’s for a minimum of 3 weeks and I cannot take paid employment anywhere else in this period.

Think that’s fairly standard.

Husband on 20% pay cut and working full time. Me furloughed. I'm just grateful we still have an income. Life if tough for everyone right now.

Same for my DH. But pension contributions and redundancy calculations (if they have to be made) will be on the higher number, and they will review it every 3 months. Can you ask for something like that to be in place?!

I guess at the moment, having a job is a luxury and being paid for even 90% or 80% is better than nothing.......?