Redundancy and advertised job

[MissLollipop]

My husband has just been given notice that his role is to be made redundant. He has a meeting with boss plus HR next week.

He has found a position advertised with a recruitment agency that works with his company, and based on terminology etc strongly believes that it is with the company, and matches his skills and experience. It is not present on the company's intranet vacancies list. (Is that, in itself, illegal?).

DH believes that they definitely want to get rid of him, and that his boss may try to run him down to any other potential manager within the company.

Should he bring up the advertised role? Or would it be smarter to wait for them to suggest it, and if they don't then he can make some sort of case that they have not followed redundancy procedures properly?

We'd be very grateful for any advice - thank you.

has he contacted the recruitment agency - if you ask them directly is this company such and such for that job you will often tell you - at least when I saw a job coming at my old company they did - and you can easily say its because I work there - I didn't have to give my name either -

It might not be a real job. Recruitment companies sometimes advertise roles to get people in the door.

I certainly don't think he should say anything about it until he definitely knows that the position is with his company and that it definitely exists.

I agree. Say nothing until you are certain a) there definitely is a job b) it is the same organisation.

Bit similar is a case I was involved in, where a woman on maternity leave who was the manager of one department was not consulted when they decided to merge her department with the one next door. She found out about it when a colleague forwarded the internal vacancy. The employer's defence was that the vacancy had been loaded by mistake and her lawyer advised her there was little hope of building a case on that alone.

Get the proof. Ask recruitment agency for as much info as possible. EG Is it XYZ company? How long have they been looking for someone? What quals are required? Pay scale?, etc etc. You may also want to say that you heard they were laying people off. not hiring, to see what they say. I'd ask them to email the job spec to you. Ideally you would get a mate (with suitable qualifications) to do all of this, otherwise you may need to be exceptionally 'vague' when agent starts asking you stuff about your current role and why you are interested in the job
Say nothing to firm
See what they say next week
Ask (in the meeting) if the advertised internal vacancies are the full list of all vacancies existing at the moment
Still say nothing in meeting, ask for confirmation in writing of everything discussed in meeting (or, alternatively send an email to boss immediately after meeting summarising in point form all the things discussed... including a point hidden somewhere in the list about there being no other suitable vacancies)
Then go to lawyer

You never know, though. It might be a different company after all. Your DH may get paid off and a new role.

Remember it is a role that becomes redundant not the person, therefore usually a company cannot replace someone in a redundant role until the time period to bring a claim in an employment tribunal has elapsed to protect themselves from a potential unfair dismissal claim from the outgoing employee. If it is the same role, even if they have sneakily changed the job title, claim for unfair dismissal would be relevant