High Expectations

[ILoveFlumps]

Long time poster, hoping for a bit of advice.

I've been with this company for 20 months (2 years in Jan). We've recently merged with another company and as a result the majority of staff in my office were made redundant. There are 4 of us left at this office.

I am the only one who can do my job which is why they kept me on. Prior to the merger, I had 3 other people in my team, 2 full time and one part time. Initially the part timer was made redundant, and we picked up the slack which wasn't too bad. However, they've now made the full timers redundant, which means it's just me. On top of that, my work load has massively increased, and the expectations in terms of revenue have doubled.

In a nutshell, I'm now doing the role of 3 people and the workload has doubled. I cannot get everything done in a working day. I don't have time for a lunch break at all, and sometimes find myself logging into work in the evenings just to try and catch up.

I have brought this up with the directors, but nothing has changed. I also don't now have a working telephone line, and am expected to be giving my personal mobile number to clients in order for them to contact me (which I really don't want to do).

I've not been there for 2 years yet (this time around, as I was there for 5 years and left, and they asked me back after a couple of years). I'm worried that if I complain too loudly they will just make me redundant too.

I guess I just want to know really, is what they've done legal in terms of giving me the work of the people they've made redundant? I wasn't even consulted, and was told on the morning they left that I now had to do their jobs as well as mine.

I'd start job hunting tbh.

And just do a reasonable amount of work in the meantime

Raise an official grievance and start looking for other jobs. They sound shit.

Oh and tell them you are on a pay as you go phone and won’t be giving the number to clients.

”I guess I just want to know really, is what they've done legal in terms of giving me the work of the people they've made redundant?”

Well there are no legal restrictions on quantity of work, so in that sense perfectly legal, but there are on hours worked.

I would do two things. Be very clear to relevant people in writing what is and isn’t doable. Ask them what you should prioritise and what should be let go. If they ignore that, make those decisions yourself and communicate (again in writing) what you have decided is most important and what you have decided to let go.

And the second thing I’d do is look for a new job. This doesn’t sound like a place you want to be.

Time to look for a new job.

Just work to your hours. If stuff doesn't get done, then it doesn't get done.

What kind of package would you get if you were made redundant? It might be a blessing in disguise by the sounds of how things are!! If they can't even give you a phone line, it doesn't sound like things are going very well for them.