First time poster, long time lurker. I need reassurance please! Ideally from posters experienced in HR or employment law, or who have been through a similar experience and come out the other side.
In brief, I told my employer that, following a fait accompli restructure, I would be raising a grievance for sex and age discrimination. I’m 50. I am very good at my job, which is senior and technical. I’m one of very few women in this team, and I’ve repeatedly watched younger men being promoted over me into new, unadvertised roles.
Private sector, large company, and I’ve been there for seven years.
Two weeks later, a second restructure was announced, making my role, and only my role, at risk. My work would, I was told, move to India. No job description for the Indian role had been written and I was told that it was not a direct replacement. They tried to hustle me into a without prejudice conversation, which I said that I wasn’t ready for: I know what that sort of conversation entails, and I wanted proper advice. I subsequently engaged a solicitor.
As soon as I raised the grievance, I was ‘frozen out’ of my work; my line manager started doing my work and arranging meetings with my team, excluding me, and without telling me. He stopped responding to e-mails from me.
The consultation process was conducted at high speed and was very stressful: the people conducting it were named in the grievance. It was obvious that they wanted me out of the door ASAP. My team and colleagues were aghast when they heard. The notes of the consultation meetings featured the other side’s unflattering view of me: I was described as ‘argumentative and stubborn’ in the notes, and as having ‘wasted their time’. I took my own notes and e-mailed them to my solicitor straight after each meeting.
The process was full of mistakes. I made a careful note of all of them: I’m not an engineer for nothing.
My solicitor contacted the business with a without prejudice offer, but the company’s counter offer was pathetic. They later raised it by a tiny amount. Then they decided to curtail the consultation without answering my questions and made me redundant by e-mail, with immediate effect.
Logically, I know that I’m in a strong position and I could certainly stand my ground at tribunal, but does anybody have any thoughts or experience that might help, please? I have this terrible sense of shame about what has happened, although I know that is silly. I am also worried that as a woman of 50 I will find it difficult to get a new role at an equivalent salary.