can they do this?

[ooer]

My employer is going to have to make job cuts. I have a unique role in the company [preen] with a unique job description. I'm worried they are trying to reorganise me into a bigger team and give me a more generic job description so I'm on a level footing with a load of other people who have a role similar to each other (but not similar to mine), who are at risk of redundancy - even though the actual work I am doing is not changing and is still in demand. I envisage they would give me the heave and give "my" job to another member of the team. Can they do that? How do I challenge it?

Even if you have a unique job title/desc they can still put you at risk of redundancy.

For example if you had a widget maker and 5 sous chefs they could say they're going to combine the roles and have 3 people who are sous chefs that make widgets.

They could split your job up among other people so "your" role no longer exists even though the work is still there.

What are they doing that is making you think that?

It is potentially possible as Grevling describes, but it depends how they do it.

They have already had a review and moved me to the bigger team in name although my job doesn't really fit there all that well and I still work functionally with my old team.

My manager told me at the time (a few months ago) they had considered changing my job title and potentially giving me the "opportunity" to swap roles with someone else in the new team in the future [which I didn't fancy and internal customers who were consulted about it were against the idea]. There were a couple of other things they considered but didn't do - e.g. giving me some management responsibilities over my old team. My job description changed very slightly and I was consulted about that and was happy with it - but the extra elements that were added have not happened in reality.

I just worry now that job cuts are more openly on the agenda they will finish the job. So to speak.

What team you are working in isn't that important and even the job title isn't necessarily a huge issue either. The most important thing is what you are actually doing. If the content of your job is different it makes you less vulnerable in the sense that you are thinking, although ultimately if they don't want anyone doing the role you are doing now as long as they tick all the right boxes and consult etc, then they can take a business decision to eliminate the role.

It is often the case that if a percentage of work is transferred to another department/area, then the person doing the work has a right to follow the work. Where I used to work, it was about 60%, but much of that assessment was subjective.

At the moment you don't have to challenge anything, but at some stage will need to know how you are 'identified' with the work you are doing.

Thankyou for your replies. I am keen to hang on to my actual responsibilities as my role is a good "fit" with my skills and experience - that's not to say someone else couldn't do it, but I was recruited specifically to that role and the others were recruited to different roles, more akin to each other.