Could my redundancy be discriminatory?

[Bunny44]

I'm hoping to see if anyone here can help me with this. Sorry if it's a long one but it's hard to summarise essentially:

I've just been made redundant from a role I was in for 9 months after a male colleague was promoted above me.

There have been rounds of redundancies in my function the last 9 months but I was the only one this time, although more were let go in other functions. I was moved into this role 9 months ago as part of a new team due to restructuring. I'm in the UK but it is a global role reporting to the US. I've been at the company just under 2 years.

It was a senior manager role. 2 more junior roles were added a few months after me into the team, we all reported to the same manager though. My new manager asked me to guide the more junior roles and act as her right hand man and set up our team infrastructure which I did.

2 months ago a male colleague, also in the UK, with much less experience, but considerable bullshitting and political skills, who was at the same level as me previously in a parallel team convinced our new senior managers (above my manager) to create a new role managing the 3 of us. My manager had no say in this but admitted to me it was shit for me. He has considerably less experience than me in our field and industry, although he's been at this particular company longer (5 years), it's his first time in this sort of role whereas I've got 15 years in this specific industry and field and I was previously head a similar department at a competitor. I took an individual contributor role coming back off maternity leave, whereas my last roles have been more senior and managing teams.

The new role created for him was not advertised and nobody in our team was consulted. I found out that it was almost not approved due to our head of department flagging it for lack of compliance but some how it got positioned as an internal promotion and signed off. If advertised I definitely would have applied and had considerable experience for it from my roles previous companies and in my current role at the company. The role also wasn't really necessary as my manager in situ didn't have that many direct reports and putting him there has kind of created a duplication of work of what I was doing. I immediately became concerned for my role as I knew he'd throw me under the bus if he got a chance as he's all about self promotion and preservation.

Working for him has been really shit as he's not used to managing senior people and micro managed us and was very patronising (I.e. using AI to send me a 15 step guides on how to do a basic parts of my job on a daily basis, also attempting to gate keep strategic projects that are supposed to fall under my remit).

I was told on Friday my role was being made redundant because they're consolidating roles to the US. But then they admitted not all roles were being redundant from our team in the UK, which means only I got made redundant and he got to keep his role. I don't understand how this whole situation has been allowed to happen.

As it happens I was anticipating this so had been doing interviews and already got an offer the same morning - but I felt forced out. My current company offered me redundancy pay of 2.5 months including one months notice but I'm left feeling like this is a highly unfair situation and possibly even sex discrimination considering that a male colleague was given a non advertised role which has caused my role to be made redundant.

Also worth noting I got a really good performance review and a rise 4 months ago so this wasn't performance related.

I think the first question to ask yourself is, 'what do I want from this?' Challenging could be time consuming and stressful. Is it worth it? He will not be affected in any way and you already have another role. Is it right or fair? No, but in big corporations sometimes who you know and how you play the game can get you far on very little talent or experience.

Pay towards the advice, not pay FOR it.

I’m in a US firm, I’m on six months notice, next level down is three months notice, one month is more junior managers. This is the norm with our competitors. Its not particularly different from European firms in that respect.

If they want a compromise agreement signed focus on getting the best deal and moving on. If the management and culture is as poor as you believe then its not a company for the long term.

An employer will usually pay enough for the employee to get legal advice as the agreement is not binding on the employee unless they have had independent legal advice. However, they won't necessarily pay enough for the lawyer to negotiate on the employee's behalf.

I agree it’s really unfair but I’ve seen many incompetent people promoted above there level. It’s not discrimination it’s just poor management. My manager managed to employ someone who struggled to write and asked for writing to be removed from her job description after 2 months… her role was 80% writing. People often hire the personality not the skills. It’s frustrating but not discrimination.

You mention you are being asked to sign a settlement agreement. In which case you will be required to get an employment lawyer to advise you (in all situations I have ever been involved this will be paid for by the company.) do not agree to the teams until your lawyer has advised. I would expect you can get more from the company than their first offer (which isn’t v generous.). The whole point of the settlement agreement is that they want to agree terms with you that ensure your waive future rights to claim against them. Your lawyer will handle everything with their lawyer and explain why you should get more. They will likely make a better counter offer. It likely is not worth persuading through any tribunal but you must negotiate for a better settlement. Good luck. And definitely do not tell them you have another job!

I see no sex discrimination here based on what I can see in your posts. I am not an employment lawyer though.

Ok well my industry only VP level have 3 months everyone else is one one month and in the US it's 1 week. I've been in the same industry across 6 companies and it's the standard for us.

Ok well my industry only VP level have 3 months everyone else is one one month and in the US it's 1 week. I've been in the same industry across 6 companies and it's the standard for us.

Not sure why it repeated

You have only been in your current role for 9 months but how long were you in your role before that? Is it less than two years?

Unfortunately the new 6 months service rules start in January 2027.

It'll be just under 2 years but 2 weeks so might have been also for that reason

Yes exactly they pay an amount towards their recommended firm, or pay the amount to me, tax deductable.

Well that's why I'm thinking about going through my home insurance since I opted for this coverage.

They don't even HAVE to pay for the advice. They can opt to use ACAS's free service instead.

Take your redundancy and sit back.and watch him cause havoc with his lack of experience while you settle into your new job, he'll be found out soon enough

I wouldn't bother trying to pursue this as unfair or discrimination. If you want to go to tribunal, it will be years before your case is even heard. It's not worth the stress or the money or the time. And the outcome is not guaranteed.

Take the money they have to give you towards legal advice, and top it up if you need to. Find an employment solicitor who is used to dealing with settlement agreements, and get them to negotiate your offer up.

I know, I do them regularly.

But I've had employees ask for £15,000. I cap at £500.

Nope.

They can't recommend the firm. And the invoice has to go to them, naming you, and they pay it direct to the lawyer. They cannot pay it to you. It is not "tax deductible".

If you use your legal provider through you'd home insurance, they will just invoice directly. It's perfectly fine to use them, most people do. But they are very basic.

And no, Acas don't sign settlement agreements "free" or otherwise. They negotiated COT3 agreements when there's a formal complaint submitted. Not the same thing.

In future you should consider joining union. Even if your company does not recognise the union officially the union will advise you and attend any hearings as your 'friend'.They will have come across similar situations before, no doubt. ( Of course you may also benefit from union perks like free will writing, discounts etc. too)

So they created a new role immediately above your senior manager role two months ago without advertising it internally and gave the job to a man without the right experience but which duplicates much of the role you already do, then almost immediately decide they are overstaffed and make you redundant. They create a second role, give it to a man, then within weeks decide they only need one after all, and get rid of you, a woman, just before your two years service are up.

If they hadn't 'invented' this new role, they wouldn't have needed to make you redundant, would they? They shoehorned a man in, then got rid of a woman. If that isn't sex discrimination I don't know what is.

Something stinks here. I'd be making the most almight fuss about it if I were you.

Well we were advised by our employment lawyer to use ACAS instead of paying for the employee to see a solicitor when we were offering a settlement agreement.

so that’s what we did. The employee had been off sick for three years & her job no longer existed.

They won't now. You can't join and be immediately covered for current matters. You usually have to be a member a min of three months to get support and any matters in train when you join are excluded.

I would definitely take legal advice before signing a settlement agreement after redundancy, in my redundancy the company paid my legal fees for this on top of the redundancy payment. Your lawyer will tell you what your chances are of getting a better deal than what is being offered, and then you can decide what to do.

Definitely consult an employment lawyer but US companies are style not substance all the way. They really love an articulate braggard.