Redundancy package

[Yetanothernamechange17]

NC for this. DH has been an employee of a company since he left school over 30 years ago. He's been the same frontline grade all that time. Now the company have lòst millions so DH has been offered nearly £30k in redundancy. He says it's too low. I say he's a fool for thinking he can hope for more. They want him out by the end of the month. He doesn't have any good qualifications and doesn't want to do anything in the same industry. The company are arseholes and I think if he doesn't walk away he'll end up with nothing. I am purposefully not naming them but you might guess who it is.

I earn a substantial wage but need his wage for a comfortable living. Without it, we'd struggle a bit.

Would you take the money and go or push for more?

Thanks for this, I totally understand what your saying, and it rings true.

I have been in the same job for over 20 years and I have some understanding of what he's thinking. But decades in one place is common in my industry. It used to be in his...no more. Many of his colleagues have done 10/20/30 even 40 years. They'll also be set adrift, no doubt.

It is a huge shock when made redundant and your DH is probably going through the cycle of denial-anger-bargaining-depression-acceptance. He may not be at the acceptance stage yet.

If his company is doing a voluntary scheme then they may offer some form of "outplacement" counselling?

All you can do is present the potential outcomes. Show him what he would be entitled to if it ended in compulsory redundancy. If the company goes into administration that is all the receivers will provide.

Hi OP, I may be in the same position as your DH having worked 30+ years and yes I feel institutionalised, I’ve seen colleagues go, voluntarily & compulsory, it’s a big global company which seems to only care about share price. Having been left behind to pick up the slack of people let go, if the chance comes up I will volunteer in a heartbeat, he has 30 years of experience, if he doesn’t want to work in the same industry I’m sure another company will snap him up, he should be able to get another job fairly similar to the wage he is on, maybe less but you will have £30k as a buffer. When companies go down the redundancy routes I think it cause a toxic environment and low moral amongst the staff left - does he want to be part of that? My advice get out now to a fresh start, I’m quite prepared to apply to supermarkets if my number comes up, if not I’m saving like mad to leave of my own accord albeit a bit miffed that previous colleagues went with a payoff!

Knowing the employer, if he accepts, there will be no support.

God if my husband was turning his nose up at 30k it would be hard to hold back my urge to strangle him. How can you cope with his pigheadedness? Take the money! He can’t “win” this.

I've got to go now but thanks for all your help today.

In my situation I could see the writing on the wall and lots of my colleagues ended up having to re-apply for their jobs and then got made redundant. I took the money and was better off than those who got made redundant. I had wanted to do something different but for others it was pretty awful

Then he's hugely vulnerable if it goes to compulsory anyway. An essential skill will be super high on the scoring scale.
Get him to calculate the statutory maybe?
What are his friends thoughts? Could he be more likely persuaded by them?

Must be so frustrating - you can lead a horse to water and all that.

Does the payment include money for his notice period? There is a minimum but they can pay in lieu of that.

Also, he needs to make sure he gets a good reference as part of the agreement.

He should be offered legal advice paid for by the company on it.

It sounds like a decent offer. Maybe plug the figures into the calculator and give him the cold hard figures of stat redundancy to show him his offer is decent.

It also sounds like he's just using stubbornness to hade behind because he can't face the change. Same with driving....

If he is in UK you can find the statutory amount of redundancy to be paid on www.gov.uk however his employer may offer to pay more.

He should request a contact that he use for references

If he is made redundant, he can claim job seekers contributions allowance the next day, he can apply via www.gov.uk
He will need P45 & some identification
Some money is paid for a certain time period & his redundancy money is not taken into account .
This is not back dated, so he should apply as soon as made redundant

If he is given notice that he will definitely be made redundant. He can have time off work to go for interviews

Good luck

I'd possibly do the calculation a bit differently. It sounds as though he'll
struggle to find something else potentially. How many months' pay is the voluntary option versus the compulsory one? If he doesn't take voluntary, how long could it be til compulsory? How much of his salary could he earn in a stopgap Christmas job if he leaves now?

Someone with a good chance of getting a suitable replacement job and offered several months' money more than they'd otherwise get might make a different decision than someone only offered a bit more money, will find it hard to get a
new job and a long gap between the voluntary and compulsory processes. I don't know where your OH fits in on the scale but that's the calculation I'd do

The thing is he is likely to lose his job anyway so he should go for voluntary redundancy if the offer made is much better than what he would get later on with just statutory redundancy pay.

If the company has financial problems they are not going to offer much more in term of voluntary redundancy pay out.

He should also be given time off to attend interviews during his notice period and some employers also pay to arrange for staff who are made redundant to speak to a job coach and get advice on CV and applications.

I had that the one time my entire team was at risk of redundancy. They arranged for us to have sessions with a career adviser to update our CV and give us advice on job search. We were also allowed to attend interviews during work hours.

Your husband has to accept the situation rather than try to dig his heels and be in denial. There is no point in staying with a company that will make you redundant anyway a few weeks or months later and might even end up folding completely and not being able to pay its employees.