Company Owners want me to Announce Redundancies

[sally037]

I guess I am just after a bit of support and a hand hold really as this is something I think they are putting on me very unfairly and it is now starting to make me feel ill from the anxiety and stress of it all.

I started at the company in August last year having been completely mis-sold the company and role (I have been trying to find another job pretty much since then). It was sold as a standalone HR Manager/Advisor role which on paper sounded very generalist in nature but they expect a lot of my work to be what a HR Director who would be on 2-3 times my salary would do.

Recently, the company owners broke the news to me that the company is in quite a lot of trouble and they are going to have to make around 200 people redundant across 4 locations. They are expecting me to manage the entire process by myself including the consultations and all the meetings that entails along with closing an office they have overseas. To be honest I don't really know where to start.

But the worst thing of all is that they want me to make the announcements to the company which will likely be 50 people in the office and everyone else on Teams. I tried to push back but they are adamant that this is something that falls on the shoulders of HR and are very much insistent that this is something that I am going to have to do. I asked if someone on the senior management team could do it but they said no and that it is my responsibility.

As someone who isn't particularly keen on speaking up in meetings, let alone do any public speaking is there anything I can do? It is weighing me down and literally making me unwell.

could you maybe suggest to them that, rather than make any legal and costly mistakes, they allow you to seek outside help (eg like company linked) with the process?
With any luck you will find a new job soon and won’t have to deal with it all!

https://peoplepointhr.co.uk/hr-solutions/redundancy-management/

I take it you haven't been in HR long? Do they have legal advice/ a solicitor on hand at least? You should be advising and coordinating, ensuring that a correct process is followed and paper trail kept etc. You should not be just sent off to handle it all, with no support or backup from the company boss. Especially on this scale!

They are making you a scapegoat and sounds like they might have hired you so they can personally avoid doing this themselves as it doesn't sound like it's a shock? You'll know that as you are less than 2 yrs service, you've not got much of a leg to stand on should they also wish to make you redundant after you do all their dirty work for them.

Personally I'd walk away and get another role elsewhere, this is never going to be a good job.

Tell them to invest in a good company who manage Change Management and do it properly.
But you urgently need to find out how to do it in a legally watertight manner. Just announcing it over Teams doesn't seem to be that way.

Fuck no.

They want you to be a hatchet woman so they can avoid the negativity.

I’m in a more junior HR position and am in the middle of helping my boss with a redundancy exercise. Even with her decades of experience, she’s taken legal advice, and that’s with a company a fraction of the size of yours.

Look for a new job- I’ve also been in the position where I was hired (and paid…) as an HR Officer when what they needed was an HR Manager. I moved on and it was the best decision I could’ve made.

You need solicitors on retainer. You can learn all of this process and it might end up being great development but don’t carry the can

I don't think the person making the announcement is blamed for the decision. Just make it clear it isnt your decision. Are you nvolved in the decision as to who is being made redundant. You could call a meeting of the managers and see what they think. But it doesnt look like you have the experience to handle this. Bit unfair of them to put it all on you.

They are trying to make you a scapegoat. You might have been hired literally for this exercise. I'd tell them no, maybe go sick, keep looking for a job.

TBH from the sound of it you're going to go through hell trying to do what they want, and at the end they will probably sack you. Recommend that they use an external HR consultancy, pack your stuff and leave. You could end up in trouble if you get stuff wrong with redundancy, especially in a foreign country.

Thank you so much for all the replies and I agree with all of you - they are trying to put everything onto me and suspect that they knew all this when they hired me. It's so toxic and I don't know how I am going to handle all the individual consultation meetings by myself. They do have a company lawyer but she is only there to do the bare minimum.

They are clearly the worst founders of a company I have ever worked for and won't get involved in anything dirty, their view is that they can pay people to do it for them which is how they view my role. I suspect that if I were sick they would just pay me SSP.

I would love to resign now and leave it all behind but we are currently in the process of being evicted as our landlord has sold the property so I need to be employed whilst we are looking for a new home. The timing is awful.

Can you send them something in writing to say that parts of the job that they are asking you to do is beyond your experience and qualifications and as such you will not be held responsible for any mistakes. Everything you do must be explicitly instructed by them, in writing so that it can be referenced if needed in the future. If they insist on instructing you verbally then follow up every single one with an email. Your professional advice to them is that they should outsource this to a HR consultancy with experience in the legalities of mass redundancies. Also, you won't deal with the office abroad at all as you have no experience of the legal requirements there.

I really feel for you. This is an awful position to be put in - there are so many areas this could go so wrong (NOT through any doing of yours!). If this is their approach, I wouldn’t trust they have even identified who is at risk appropriately. You should really be supported with sufficient legal advice for a redundancy exercise on this scale.

Are you a CIPD member? If so you should have access to the employment law service - might be worth talking to them for advice. But more importantly CIPD have a well-being service which offer confidential support to you. I can totally understand why this making you feel unwell, and you deserve to be supported.

I’ve worked in global roles for a number of years, and I wouldn’t consider doing anything outside the UK without local employment law input. If it’s a European country with a reasonable number of employees, there can be considerable consultation requirements and the whole process can look markedly different to the UK.

Is there any chance you can get the lawyer on side to advocate for the risks to the business here? Fines, tribunals etc. Might make them reconsider the cost of employment law counsel/consultant if they understand how badly this could go for them.