Waiting for possible redundancies at work and struggling to cope

[Laurenie]

At work we are waiting to hear re job losses. They will announce in sept. Hundreds of jobs losses maybe. I am stressed and worried. Find it hard to motivate myself. How do others cope? My partner works there too but a different dept. We moved nearby after we got the jobs. It is an ALB.

(Edited by MNHQ at the request of the OP)

I was in this position recently, although we had prior knowledge that we were all being made redundant, we just didn’t know when. It’s a terribly worrying time. Do you have other colleagues that you can be open with? We had a small group within my team who would meet regularly just over teams to support each other. It was a huge help even though no one had answers. It was almost a relief once we had our official announcement in comparison to the waiting and wondering

I do have a colleague I can confide in. We are all in different situations though - a couple are over retirement age so not that bothered. My apr is not till next year by which time I might be gone so maybe it’s not going to matter if I don’t do much work

They say hundreds of job losses but it is out of 3000, some say 800 will go

It is public sector and I am angry at leadership that caused this

I’ve been there twice. One thing that helped me was being pro-active - having the mindset that the redundancy has already happened and living frugally. This helped my anxiety but I appreciate the approach won’t work for everyone! Also, start looking for new jobs on LinkedIn etc.

A lot of people manage to avoid redundancy for years if they open it up to voluntary redundancy. Usually there’s enough employees with long service to make the cost saving numbers up, esp in public sector. I’ve been on both sides of it. I had also managed to avoid redundancy for years through others taking VR. The range of emotions you go through is similar to grieving with anger being the first.
There will be an awful lot of speculation just now, which probably isn’t anywhere near the truth either. Our leadership team had regular meetings with us trying to quash some of the wild rumours going around which we were all thankful for, without them giving too much away of course. It’s to be expected that motivation for a lot of employees will be low. Do you know roughly when to expect the announcement?

Make sure you have joined your trade union ahead of the redundancies being announced. They will support you through the process and help you if you want to try redeployment, and basically make sure you get what you’re entitled to.

They say sept for telling us but there have been so many delays I am not sure if they will. It is the science/tech. It is hard for people to get alternative jobs especially as unis contracting too so not sure how popular VES will be. There have been 2 rounds VES already

In my sector, restructures / potential redundancies come about every couple of years. Sometimes sooner. I've been through loads now. It's a horrible limbo. However, what I've learned is that every time I've come out of it ok. There's always another path for you to follow if it isn't this job. You should be entitled to redundancy pay, a notice period, and time off for interviews. You will be ok whatever happens. It could even be the push you need to re-evaluate what you want in a job. It's a horrible time but you will survive it and possibly come out of it in a better position. Sometimes change is a good thing, despite the trauma you go through getting there.