'At risk' of redundancy and zero hours contracts

[AvidMarion]

I work in a professional role for a small company. Myself and another person are 'at risk' of redundancy (although I haven't seen any paperwork or been asked to sign anything?) but its more of a consultancy period at the moment. One option is to do similar work but on what is effectively a zero hours contract - would I get my statutory redundancy pay if I took this option, as I would no longer be employed?

If you are being offered a casual worker agreement as an option, ie for very ad hoc occasional work, then you'd be redundant from your employed post and should still get redundancy pay.

if you will be doing the same job on a fairly regular basis just very variable or not guaranteed numbers of hours, that sounds like continuous employment to me, so you would still be employed and would therefore not get redundancy pay - that would be an option to avoid redundancy.

I think you need to make sure you are clear exactly what's being offered here and what the alternative is.

Thanks. I'm quite unclear about what is being offered. There seems to be some negotiating going on between me and directors and other person at risk and directors - the directors are keen to appear to be fair to both of us. This currently seems to mean that some work is offered but then after speaking to the other person the offer is retracted. I know they are keen to avoid paying out redundancy so trying to find alternatives. Does any of this process need documenting anywhere because its all quite vague at present.

If you are at risk of redundancy and are in consultation you should have been advised of this in writing together with a date by when consultation will end. It's fine to explore ways of avoiding redundancy but they should be clear what these options are and what the implications are.