Found out I'm going to be made redundant

[ConflictedCheetah]

Not asking for anything but just venting.

I was digging around in publicly available info on SharePoint looking for something yesterday and stumbled across a carelessly saved presentation for directors, indicating that under some cost saving measures, it's being suggested that my team are toast (5 of us, I'm head of dept).

I had a sense that under the org restructure our work wasn't being prioritised or valued so it's not a massive surprise but I'm really pissed off. Presentation makes no mention of where the work will go.

I've worked my ass off in the last year and a half to upskill this team to do really high quality work and establish real excellence in what we do but it's just not very visible and I've been held back by lack of support and structure around us.

I thought that was finally coming to and end and have recently been working with other heads of adjacent depts to plan a strategy and bigger piece of work we can all do together to make things run much more smoothly. 90% of that strategy is built from planning and studying I've been doing for months but now those teams whose Heads have caused chaos through getting on with stuff without proper skills or planning, will stick around to implement my plans.

So I'm 47 and about to have to start job hunting. This job has amazing flexibility. I'm 0.8, mostly work from home when I want, totally flexible hours. Going to be so hard to find anything like that again.

Also an internal job at same level that I would have been a great redeployment match for, has just come up and been filled. If I'd known my team is about to be shit canned I would have gone for it.

So, so pissed off.

Rant over

Hi

I really feel for you! I took voluntary severance (the key weasel word used to avoid the idea of redundancies) on the grounds that if I left it another six months it would be compulsory (and thus less of a pay out). Although voluntary meant it was volunteers only, and I had no pressure applied, I knew the score. However, some staff outside of the scope were approached, which did risk age discrimination, as some managers stupidly approached older staff and singled them out. Urgh. But we (university) are unionised so that put a stop to that, sharpish.

For your good self: your organisation still has to follow legal procedures whether they look for volunteers or enact CRs. Make sure they do! Redundancies are dismissals in law so they have to do it fairly or risk legal claims.

https://www.gov.uk/staff-redundant/compulsory-redundancy
https://www.acas.org.uk/manage-staff-redundancies

A SharePoint presentation that you came across is very bad management. Again, they put themselves at risk f they do not follow the law. Did the SharePoint presentation state redundancies – you say it suggest you and your team are toast? Do you feel able to raise the found presentation with anyone?

Again, really sorry.

Thanks for replying. They've done redundancies before (fairly recently) and do have track record of doing things by the book so I'm fairly confident the process will be fair.
I've taken voluntary redundancy myself before (similar circumstances to you) so know the drill.

The presentation was about coat saving proposals across all directorates. One of the proposals in my directorate was my whole team going, with details of the salary savings. Other teams and roles are mentioned in other directorates as well as some that the org is going to stop doing.

The presentation was linked in an agenda for a meeting. I probably had no business looking at it although I did for genuine reasons, and it wasn't in any way protected so fair game to an extent.

I don't think I can raise that I've seen it but I can definitely discuss with my director that I feel like the writing's on the wall - like I said this doesn't feel like a shock. I've been trying to get approval for some headcount to be confirmed in my team and its.been dragging on. Now I know why.

Have taken today off to chill (not an issue in our org to do so at short notice) and start dusting off my CV! Would be great to get a payout but if I see something I really want in the meantime I'll go for it.

Sounds like an excellent plan! I hope you get some clarity soon: the worse thing is not fully knowing.

How long have you been there?

That really sucks OP but the way to do it is to get ahead of the curve, retrain if necessary, apply for as many jobs you like the sound of so you have something to go to. My DP was doing 60-70 hour weeks and giving everything to his job and wasn’t valued for it. Luckily, a client noticed who was conscientious, who did the work and offered him a job at a higher salary. Time to upskill and reinvent yourself.

Just because others cannot see your worth, doesn’t mean you aren’t worth anything. It means you are around the wrong people.

Also, think what you can do for your team while you can. You mentioned they have been unskilled, are there proper training records etc to aid them when they are needed?

Oops upskilled!

I've been here 6 years, this is my third role at the ord. I've completed a certification recently which is great and some of my team are also just finishing courses and apprenticeships. They'll all have time to finish them and do exams before any of this can happen which is great. They're externally validated qualifications so they'll walk away with those in the bag. Some are FTCs so won't get anything else. Some are fairly new and a couple are longstanding staff (over 2 years) so will be ok. Bit of a mixed bag.
Definitely time to start downloading work I've done, brushing up LinkedIn profile, reconnecting with people.
It's funny because personally I know I have a good reputation internally. People know I'm a great manager and really good at my work. It's just this team never really took off for reasons outside of our control. Sucks for them and for me.

Appreciate all the advice and supportive comments. Financially we'll be ok for a bit too. DH has a good job, we have savings and our outgoings are manageable. Obviously I want to get something lined up asap but we'll survive if there is a short gap.

I'm so sorry that you've accidentally seen the doc you saw OP. That shouldn't have happened. But as it has, I think you're well within your rights to ask you manager what's going on.

Regardless of whether the redundancies go ahead or not do you still want to work there? What is it that you do? I'm sure the MN vipers can help you find another role if you want help.

Thanks. I do like the org and the flexibility and working culture is really brilliant and will be hard to replicate so I would like to stay BUT progression is hard to come by so maybe it's a.good time to move on. It's charity/education/training kind of sector and an operations role. I'm sure I'll find something.
Funnily enough having been posting yesterday on LinkedIn about work related stuff (I do try and maintain a visible and active presence there) I've had a recruiter get in touch this morning about a role. It's not a good fit for me but I've replied with details about why and what I am looking for. There's hope!
Just a sucky feeling but I'll pick myself up off the mat on Monday and get on with it. Thanks vipers.