Voluntary redundancy

[Doobies]

Ok. Have been on mat leave since January was due back 21st jan 2011 . I work for a local authority as a social worker.

Have decided to resign so went in yesterday to hand notice. Received letter this morning about the possibility of VR. Called HR who said I couldn't apply as my notice had been submitted yesterday.

Is there anyway round this? I had spoken to HR twice the last week re paying back mat pay and they had not mentioned VR. Would much rather take VR as i t means I won't have to pay back mat pay.

It's entirely up to them - if they are offering VR they can set what the terms and conditions are for that offer, and for obvious reasons it would be unusual to offer it to staff who have already resigned.

Why would they want to find a way round it or mention VR to you when they knew you were thinking of resigning as VR will cost them money and you resigning costs them nothing.

It must be massively galling to now know that had you received your letter one day earlier you would be possibly financially better off.

Could you ascertain when other staff received their letters or were made aware of the possibility of VR as if you were notified one day after you resigned it does seem possible that they held your notification back until they had your letter of resignation so that you had been notified but that you were ineligible as you'd already resigned. This would mean that you had been treated differently as you were on ML and could be grounds for a grievance claim.

I might try and find out when other staff received their letters. Thanks sitdown. It does seem strange that no one in HR told me about this despite me speaking to them twice.

Why is it strange? Would you expect them to say 'if you're thinking about resigning, you might want to hold off a few days because there's a letter about a possible VR offer coming out'?

I can't imagine for one moment - particularly in a local authority setting - HR have the time or inclination to sit down when mass producing in a mail merge the letters for all staff about a VR possibility, and pick out those who they think might resign in the near future, then hold those back.

I think it's one of those unfortunate coincidences and unless there is more to it I am not sure what bringing a grievance would achieve.

it does seem slightly mean imo

was there no word on grapevine about voluntary redundancies? we knew a few months ago that these were being offered (LA too)

Just spoke to a colleague. She received her letter at the beginning of November as did others. No one from work informed me about the possibility of VR.

The people in HR you spoke to wouldn't necessarily have known, so don't hold it against them.

You might not have got VR either. What sort of Social Worker are you?

As llareggub says, you wouldn't have necessarily got the package even if you had applied for it.

No way round it. You have resigned so not eligible.