redundancy package good or bad?

I work for a large retail company and i am currently in a consultation period and I am at risk of redundancy. I have already been given an initial settlement figure for my redundancy and I am not sure whether it's a decent offer or not. With a payment in lieu of notice, my redundancy entitlement and an ex-gratia payment ( think that's what they called it) I will receive a year's salary. I just feel that for 23 years (4 months off 24years) it should have been a bit more.....am I being unrealistic in my expectations? I understand that lieu of notice and redundancypayments are based on formulas but should I be pushing for a bit more on the ex-gratia?

Hi Sharon

You don't mention your age so I can't be precise. If you were 61 or older you would be entitled to a maximum statutory redundancy payment of 30 weeks' pay capped at £350 per week. If you were 40 it would be more like 20 week's pay.

Your statutory notice would be 12 weeks, but you may be entitled to more under your contact of employment.

So your statutory entitlement would be somewhere between 32 and 42 weeks' pay, with only 12 of those week being at full pay, the rest being capped at £350 (assuming you earn more than £350).

52 weeks' pay, therefore, is not bad, particularly if you earn significantly more than £350 per week. What you need to consider though is whether there is any contractual redundancy arrangement or, if there have been several rounds of redundancy before, what has happened in the past. If more has been offered before you may be able use that to push up the figure, particularly if you can argue that custom and practice has been to pay higher amounts.

If your employer has a genuine redundancy situation and is following a reasonable process it is unlikely that an unfair dismissal claim is worth pursuing. However, if you were to successfully bring such a claim your compensation would be calculated on the basis of your loss of earnings, and that is calculated by estimating how long you will remain out of work or at least not earning as much as you were with your current employer (any redundancy payments made would be offset though). In the current climate it is not unusal for compensation payments to be at the level of a year's pay.

There is never any harm in asking for more but it does sound like this is a reasonably generous offer.

hope that helps

Pete

Hello all. I've been looking through these forums and I really must say there's some excellent information. This response from Peter a perfect example. I was hoping for an answer to this question as it's very similar to my daughter's predicament.

Thank you for the excellent resource.