HR (or any!) advice please

[Namechangeforthisquestion7]

I just need some advice on what to do next.
A week ago I wrote to my organisation's HR and asked whether I could be considered for voluntary redundancy. There is no voluntary redundancy programme being offered openly, but I asked whether they would consider my request.
I work for a large organisation where people can and do move around internally. I am currently employed in a post that will end in 6 months. Over the past years I have been in several roles that have ended and have then been supernumerary for extended periods - all with the same employer. I said this means I'm dispensable.
Then I explained that the reason I was asking is because I'm in a situation of unexpected serious financial difficulty, completely not my fault just very bad luck, and that the redundancy payment would resolve it.
A week later I have not had a response, not even an acknowledgment of the request. Should I follow up and ask again or should I assume the lack of response means I shouldn't have asked?
(Name-changed for this because if anyone recognises the situation I want to separate from my other posts.)

In my organisation

Oops pressed post too soon. In my organisation we would contact you to see what had caused you to write that email but we certainly would not offer you redundancy. Public sector. I take it you just need a stack of cash pronto?

I suppose there is no harm in asking but I think it’s very unlikely that any employer would just pay someone voluntary redundancy without there being an actual VR scheme in place.

There is usually a reason whereby an employer seeks to implement such a scheme (the need to downsize, relocate, cost saving, etc), it’s not really something that’s just done on an ad hoc basis.

And even within an official voluntary redundancy scheme I think it’s unlikely you’d be considered if your contract ends in 6 months. Why would they pay you to leave if you’ll be gone anyway in 6 months?

I’m sorry that you’re having financial difficulties, I think you should really consider though whether being intentionally out of work will make things better for you financially.

I would leave it. There’s no entitlement to voluntary redundancy, and if you keep pointing out they don’t need you they might decide to get rid on less favourable terms.

Have you been in touch with organisations like step change if you need financial help.

My organisation wouldn’t even consider it unless they were going through the process at the time

A company can't make a role redundant then recruit for someone to replace that role. Therefore, if your role is needed you can't be made voluntarily redundant.

It's often helpful to think about 'the role' rather than 'the person'. If Year 4 need a teacher, then you can't make year 4's teacher redundant because year 4 need a teacher.

I think you've been a bit foolish sending that message and your immediate line manager may well be having a bit of a tough time justifying your existence right now!

I'm assuming that the OP is a permanent employee, it's just the role that she's in will finish in 6 months and then she'll be supernumary again until another post is available.

There is no benefit for the organisation in making you redundant, OP, so I don't think it will happen.

Do you work in construction OP?

I completely missed the bit about the role ending!! Sorry! But that doesn't actually help you I don't think - the costs of making you redundant then backfilling a role for 6 months will be high. They might look at redundancy when your 6 months is up - but it might not be voluntary. They don't have to offer VR.

Sorry, in case I didn't explain it well, as Chic says, yes when my role ends in 6 months I will still be employed, they will carry on paying me to do nothing until another suitable role becomes available - this has already happened a few times during my employment and it's generally taken several months for a role to come up.
I suppose my thinking was instead of paying me to do nothing later on, they could save money by paying me a lesser amount now.
Not in construction, no, it's an office/desk-based job.
So I shouldn't chase this up then, even if I don't get a reply? I wasn't sure whether to send a follow up message or just leave it.

I think you need to give it a good few weeks to see what response this gets.

I hope you don’t mind me asking but what steps have you taken to resolve the financial situation you are in. It sound like you need a significant amount of cash ASAP. Is there not another solution?

How is being unemployed going to improve your financial situation?

Even if they agreed your role met the conditions to be considered redundant, statutory redundancy is only one week's pay per year of service (depending on age) capped at 20 years.

So even if you've been there a decade it's less than 3 months salary.

I assume your employer doesn't provide advances or interest-free loans?

It just seems really irrational to seek at most a few months' worth of wages in advance, followed by no monthly income at all due to unemployment, in order to "solve" a financial crisis.

My organisation's terms are a lot better than the statutory so it is a worthwhile sum if I get it.
I don't fear being unemployed. My work is common enough in workplaces generally (just not actually in demand much in my own workplace, hence multiple short-term projects) and I have other transferable skills to draw on, so I could do whatever job I can find to continue earning.
Unfortunately, yes, I need a large sum in one go and I've looked at any options I could think of before turning to this one. My own savings plus what I would receive for redundancy would be what I need. It's an unusual and devastating situation - unusual enough that I'm deliberately not specifying it here for the sake of anonymity, but my employer does know about it.

Will you have had successive fixed-term contracts for more than 4 years when this work comes to an end in 6 months time?

Or do you have a permanent contract?

What work to the get you to do in the quiet periods?

HR bod here.

Typo

What work do they get you to do in the quiet periods?

@GreenBiro At the end of this current project I would have done four projects over six years, of varying lengths, but with a gap of several months between each. And in those gaps I'm given literally nothing to do, I'm just spare while they wait for another to come up. This is why I thought I'd have a chance at asking for redundancy, because it's such as waste of money to pay staff to do nothing!

@GreenBiro sorry, to add, yes I do have a permanent contract, I'm a permanent employee despite working on short term projects.

I know this isn’t the answer you want but in my experience it is highly unlikely that your employer will agree voluntary redundancy without it being part of a business plan. Your employer has no reason to pay you to leave your job. It’s much more cost effective for them to pay staff during quiet periods than constantly making people redundant and then recruiting when they need more staff.

My answer to anyone who asked for voluntary redundancy is, you are free to resign at any time. Redundancy is for people who don’t want to leave but there is now no longer a job for them.

Depending on the amount of money, you could ask your employer for an advance of salary, but from what you have said this may not be enough.

Focus on ways to raise the money you need, second mortgage, loan, selling items, Step Change. Please do not use payday loan companies.

It’s a high risk strategy but you could resign and claim you’ve been constructively unfairly dismissed due to redundancy at the point that you have nothing to do.

You need some proper legal advice on this though because you have to resign.

In your situation I wouldn’t do this… too risky to lose well-paid job and potentially walk away with nothing.

If you’d had successive fixed term contracts for 4+ years you could have been in a compulsory redundancy situation actually when the current one comes to an end.

Can you ask your employer for a loan via payroll?

You should be open but confidential with them about your situation. They may be able to help. If there are potential redundancies elsewhere in the organisation they could maybe let you go instead.

Thanks for the advice everyone, its helpful to see the different comments.

Honestly OP I'd say there's almost no chance they'll agree to this. You say you've had four 'fallow' periods between projects over six years of several months, so maybe 8 months total? I assume the amount they'd pay you in redundancy would be at least equivalent to this? I think you're underestimating the cost to an organisation of constant recruitment. You say, there's a period of several months with nothing for you to do and its costing them money. But lets imagine they ended your contract at the end of the project. They'd realistically need 2-3 months minimum to get a new person in place for the next project, in my experience in recruitment probably more. Then that person would have a 6 month probation/getting up to speed period. And since the nature of the job seems to be discrete projects, this would be ongoing.

Is there anyone else in the organisation employed like this? If so, by making you redundant, wouldn't they be saying those roles were redundant too?

I wouldn't email again: if they are considering this, or even just considering how to reply to you, it would take a lot more than a week for them to consider that since its come out of the blue. Even getting it on the agenda of the next HR meeting could take a few weeks.

But honestly OP, I can't see how it would be a sensible business decision for them. If they were about to launch a voluntary redundancy scheme due to covid and your timing is perfect then maybe, but what you're describing isn't a situation that would usually lead a company to make people redundant. Think about the cost of your redundancy, plus the cost of recruiting vs the cost of leaving you in post.

As others have said, you may be better off seeing what other financial solutions are available. If there's lots of work in your field would a higher paying job be an option?

Do you have a union? Our union has a scheme where you can register interest in redundancy, and they will link you up with others who have been offered redundancy but don't want it. It's then for the individuals concerned to see if a 'swap' is feasible in terms of skills and experience. There's no obligation for the company to agree but if, from a PR perspective, they are trying to minimise compulsory redundancies there's an incentive to make it work.