Redundancy negotiation help please

[chockaholic72]

I work as a PA for a director of a grand-funded organisation - not public sector but not commercial either. I found out today from him, off the record, that my director will be leaving and not replaced. He wasn't certain but was fairly sure that I'll be made redundant. I'm glad I know before I'm officially given notice of redundancy, or at risk at least, and I'm fairly certain that they are just going to offer me statutory redundancy pay.

There aren't many decent well-paid PA jobs where I live (I'm on £32kPA), and I'll have to temp while I find a new job. I don't have a massive amount of savings as I'm doing up a house, so I tend to save, and then get the loft done, or a new bathroom, or whatever - I have a bit of a cushion, but I live on my own, and feel very exposed financially.

Is there anything I can do to try and up the payment? Another PA has started recently and she's been put on 3 months notice and is on £3k more than me - obviously a good negotiator - so if she left in similar circumstances, she'd be leaving with more than me. I've worked extremely hard in the six years I've been there, during a couple of periods of extremely stressful negative press reports. I also know where the skeletons in the closets are, but I really don't want to resort to blackmail!

Any advice gratefully received.

Steer well clear of the skeletons, that won't help you find a new pa job if word gets out that you've been indiscreet.

It's also not relevant to negotiations that the other pa is paid more or that it potentially puts you under financial strain but it makes me wonder if they were recruiting while they knew you may be at risk of redundancy. Are there any vacancies now?

It's all speculation at this point though and I don't think you should ever have been told this way - it's unprofessional.

You could try and negotiate a package or suitable alternative role but if they're following the acas guidelines/ their own procedures properly there's no obligation to offer more than necessary. You could ask to leave earlier than your notice specifies and for time off to attend interviews.

Good luck

If there’s another person undertaking the same type of work, i.e. PA duties, in the same establishment then they should be pooled with you and you should be scored against objective criteria.

In layman’s terms, they can’t just say you’re redundant, they need to follow a consultation process and score to select out of the PA’s first.

As pp said, I wouldn’t drag up other peoples salaries etc but if they do try to just select you for redundancy I’d ask why you weren’t pooled, what selection criteria were used etc.