Redundancy long notice

[boygirlmom]

We are making mass layoffs and I've been told our jobs may be iredundant (being offshored) and Europe employees will enter consultation. My teams mates in the IS have been impacted and already been told. But they have very long transition dates for knowledge transfer... end day is 1st April 2024!!

In some parts of Central Europe it sis the same but U.K. is entering consultation so will see how it pans out.

But wondering in the U.K. can they really say our role is redundant and then make us work a long notice period before we leave. Can't we take the redundancy and leave. There are some good jobs in the market I am interested in so I wouldn't want to miss out on those but the redundancy payout is significant as been there 20 years so don't want to miss that either.

What are they allowed to do legally?

they can't make you work a long notice period - but then if you leave before the refundancy date, you won't get the payment.

the law only states the minumum notice they must give you, there is no maximum.

Practically, they don't want to give tons of notice as people slack off. but if its obvious that its going to happen, best to be honest about it and hope people stay for the payout (you'd all leave if no good payout asap i assume)

I had 9 months "notice" of my redundancy. It was also a mass redundancy.

Once we got closer to the date and the handover was progressing well they were a bit more flexible. Also because they needed us to stay for the handover we had an additional bonus payment (equal to contracted notice - so another 3 months salary) for staying until the end.

It is a horrible time sitting in limbo. The other thing to be aware of is they can still offer suitable alternative employment. Once you get your head around leaving you might not want to accept an alternative but could lose your redundancy pay-out if your refusal is considered unreasonable.

If you want to leave before then you can. Just resign. But you will only get a redundancy payment if you stay and work the full notice period.

The only other alternative is to try an d negotiate for pay in lieu of notice.

I had a vser offer that clearly stated that I couldn't have a job offer in hand before the end of contract date, which was 7 months after it was agreed. Such is life if I want the payout.

I was once the Business Lead on an offshoring project and yes it does take nine months to a year for knowledge transfer and the people involved did know redundancy was very likely to be coming at the end of it. If they wanted to receive the redundancy pay, then they needed to stay until the end.

Quite a bit of this information isn't entirely correct. You may not have to stay until the end of your contract, but you would have to stay for much of this period if you want your redundancy pay.

There is something called counter-notice. There is a very good explanation of it here: https://www.usdaw.org.uk/Help-Advice/Workers-Rights/Finding-Another-Job/Negotiating-Early-Leaving-Date

The important thing to note is that this only applies if (a) you have definitely been served notice of redundancy and (b) you are within the statutory notice period (in your case 12 weeks back from the confirmed date of redundancy). If your redundancy package is more than the statutory, you should also check the policies - in some cases policy may dictate that only statutory redundancy will be paid if you leave earlier, even with agreement.

The employer can still refuse to let you go earlier, but you have some legal leverage - most employers won't take that on as it is just more cost and hassle for them.

You should also check very carefully any policies about existing job offers - technically, if you have a job offer in hand before the statutory notice period starts, then you aren't entitled to redundancy pay even if you have been served notice of redundancy. That is true even if the new employer agrees to wait until your notice expires. Keeping offers a secret is pretty hard given take up of references etc. This is because in law redundancy pay is not a "reward" for service or for losing your job. It is compensation for loss of income to enable you a period of time to replace that income. If there is no loss of income, it is deemed that compensation is not due.

It is worth spending some time getting clued up on the deatil around redundancy. As someone else said, there are rules around alternative employment offers that can come into play, and there are a lot of myths around what suitable means in law - it can include jobs that are lower paid or on worse terms in some circumstances.

Finally, whilst redundancy pay may look nice, do remember that if you haven't got a job it will run out very quickly, and the economy is volatile at the moment. If you need to work, jumping before everyone else is also looking for a job may be wise. Only you can decide that. But you cannot assume that those jobs you are looking at now will be available when you want them, and long term gains may be better than short term considerations.