If 1/3 of a grade are being made redundant and some have asked for VR...

[nymphadora]

Can the company refuse & pay CR instead (to them or make others redundant instead)? Assuming all staff members are equal.

We've been told there may not be the money for VRs and people are worried they'll get made redundant because they didnt put forward for it.

An employer can put whatever terms they like on VR, so yes, they can refuse.

It's never a case of 'all staff being equal'. The employer will use selection criteria and not everyone will be the same. If all the high performers requested VR then the employer would be highly unlikely to give it to them all, for obvious reasons.

We all have similar qualifications & experience and no targets as such. Just not a lot of trust that they won't go for the cheapest option!

Is there any reason they shouldn't go for the cheapest option though? As long as they apply fair criteria then if by making compulsory redundancies only they get to select the best people for the jobs going forward and save a bit of money, that sounds objectively like a good strategy to me.

If they are offering VR at all it suggests they are not completely focused on just going for the cheapest option. If there is not the money available for VRs then that option will not be offered in the first place, surely?

when we needed to half a department we asked for volunteers for VR and if we hadn't got enough we would have moved to CR. In that case the VR volunteers would have been paid more than the CR people. fortunately we got enough. Maybe it's a similar situation.

That's what they've done here mrswobble but now they say they dont have enough money to pay VR as CR is cheaper.
Flowery- no idea why it's been offered in that case. It changes regularly. I just don't want to lose my job if someone else has offered to go and they would only be staying cos CR is cheaper.

It's all v frustrating as I'm getting snippets 2nd/3rd hand and probably losing bits along the way. I missed on the VR being offered(bot that I wanted it) because I never heard about it until after