To think settlements/compromise agreements can’t be THIS common…?!

[Uyyyy]

A friend I used to work with recently confided in me that she had an 80k settlement (she was a high earner) after she claimed her boss didn’t like her as she was a single mother to two children with separate fathers and that he used to actively set meetings she couldn’t attend due to school pick up. She said she never had to even go to court, she just caused one hell of a fuss, went off sick and then they paid up. It turns out another friend from an entirely different company got six months pay for basically not much at all other than a fall out with line manager (large accountancy practice). I have also read the thread on here earlier about someone trying to get a settlement after being threatened with a PIP and posters saying to go for it etc… I am amazed by this, surely most companies take a hard line and force you to go to a tribunal rather than handing out a few months pay without the case even being heard?!

I am sure they are lying.

We do them. Trust me, it’s money well spent to get rid of rotten or dead wood we don’t want around the place.

That's quite the statement @JHound !
Who do you think is lying,?!

I think they are quite common. If there is a dispute between manager & report or the relationship has broken down, it's better to reach a legal agreement than go through a protracted performance process. I don't think there's any broad moral conclusion you can come to - each settlement is different. Sometimes the employee is at fault, sometimes the employer or sometimes nobody is. The business has moved on and doesn't need that role any more and settlement is easier than redundancy.

Tribunals - they can take years to get in front of a judge and cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and legal costs aren't awarded - Allison Bailey's cost £500k+ and her award was around £20k IIRC. Fair play to all the people who do have the determination and courage to see them through. They are doing a great service to all of us.

BUT why would most go through them when you can sign a piece of paper and get a no-fault termination and move on with your life and career?

Also discrimination is not the only reason you'd go to tribunal - plenty of areas where a dismissal is unfair.

If you look at the Employment Tribunals decision website there are loads of cases where the cases have not proceeded. A good number of those must be because a settlement of some sort is agreed.
When my husband recently took his ex-employer to the ET for something very simple and a relatively small sum of money (failure to pay holiday wages due on retirement) the facilitator really pushed for the matter to be settled. I imagine many people do.

Can this happen in the public sector? I have suffered unfair behaviour over the last few years at work that's making me want to leave my job. I don't have any evidence other than dated notes of things that happened and were said and why they were unfair. But that's all.

Fairly common in my line of work, charity sector. It's cheaper and easier going to tribunal. Tribunals are also public which is a reputational risk, whereas the public never find out about a quiet settlement.

Mostly it's the employers that have behaved badly and when they get legal advice they are told they've likely broken employment law and encouraged to settle. We're also heavily unionised and hey can help with negotiating out when employers have been shitty.

It's not usually huge sums though, typically 3-6 months pay (usually more like 3) plus paid notice and holidays.

are all these payments tax free? I honestly thought my company would never have done this 😂 obviously I’m quite naive !

I’m a senior finance person and see multiple of these a year, in every company I’ve worked in. Not uncommon at all, I would say a significant number at the close to £100k mark and more

Not tax free but the company would sometimes cover the tax IME.

My last job was always doing them. Much safer than a tribunal and an assured outcome.

@AquaPeer what sort of reasons though? How does a company manage to mess up multiple times and not learn from it? Seems so strange to me, surely just don’t cock up!

Yes in the public sector but not usually for Things like this as you’ve described

its very common with senior leaders who can be tricky to get rid of through a traditional performance process or, to be honest, it’s just not worth while. The company Ask them whether you can come to an agreement for them to leave

it’s not usually an employee approach, although I’ve seen that too, if the company want rid of them anyway they can agree it

They don’t mess up, it’s just the easiest way for many, especially. a very senior person to exit.

say have a director on £200k a year. The CEO doesn’t like them, or the way the work, their results or the way they lead their team. They want them gone. You start a conversation, say it’s not working for me, I’ll give you £100k to sign a settlement and go.

I got 3 months pay 5k
So did a colleague recently
a friend was discriminated for her disability and git 40k
8ok is massive !

Oh. I'm just a basic employee...

What would they be paying you for?

I work in HR, they are very common. It’s really expensive to defend a tribunal even if the company isn’t at fault, or even manage performance sometimes if the individual is senior or wants to make a fuss - given the amount of management time etc it will take. Often the leadership team will see it as more commercial to quickly make it go away and save the time/money/aggro/bad PR.

Super common most places I think. They make the company look sooo bad. I've been part of several and it's very frustrating because although you may have proof of the colleague lying (obviously not always the case, but sometimes!) unless you have an airtight case settlement is always the safer/cheaper/least brand damaging option.

Very common where large companies want to reduce headcount without publicly making redundancies. Professional services firms are well known for it.
The amount needs to be more that the redundancy payout would be so varies depending on years worked.

I was offered one recently (not professional services, mid senior in technology) but it was only my notice pay so refused and have been moved sideways instead. If it had been my notice period plus 3 months I would have taken it. I'm applying elsewhere now but the market is bad.

Extremely common in salaried roles, they are used on almost all occasions someone needs to pushed out or to leave assp, from everything from gross misconduct to personality clashes.

The payout varies a lot though, some are very little and some are a lot.

Yes, once you account for how many senior managers behave like absolute wankers, that explains a lot about the risks of letting it go to tribunal / becoming public

It's not so much about the reason or issues someone has been complaining about, it's more about getting an employee out quick and having waived all their employment rights. The put the employer in a far better and neat position

Also it's not necessarily the employer that has messed up or done something wrong, they are used a lot to get rid of crap employees or those that an employer just doesn't want around anymore

Dunno, compensation for bullying and having to quit my job? What are other settlements actually paying for?