New to Forum - been made redundant

Hello everyone, I am hoping you may be able to give me some advice.

On Monday I found out that my role has been made redundant.

Since then nobody has been told anything, we have not been given a redundancy package, we do not know when we are leaving, in fact we havent been told anything at all other than who will be going. I have approached HR who have informed me that the packages are being approved my senior management and it may take some time before we are informed of anything.

Does anybody know if there are any laws about how long we will have to wait to find out this information. I have looked on the internet and I cant get the answers I need.

I really think its wrong to keep us all hanging like this, especially as its 4 weeks till christmas.

Thank you for you message although I am sorry to hear about your situation at work.

I gather from the information you have supplied that you are not the only employee that is at risk of redundancy. Could you clarify how many redundancies are due to be made? The reason I ask is because collective consultation procedure would apply if there are 20 or more employees being made redundant.

Before making a redundancy, Employers should always consult with employees before making them redundant. Again, I am not sure whether all of the employees from your Company are being made redundant or there is a selection of you.
It would be very helpful to me if you could reply with further information about the redundancy announcement, the amount of redundancies that are due to be made and also your length of service.

I am here to help you, so I will continue with my answer when you reply.

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

There are 57 employees that have been made redundant, but not the whole company. We have been told by our line manager which roles are affected, mine being one of them.

Our employee representative has told us they we will just have to wait now until the packages are approved before we can get any further information from them, so we are just playing a waiting game to find out our leave date and our pay package. I have worked with the company for over 7 years and I feel that it is unfair of them to diclose who is getting made redundant before being able to offer us and sort of package or timescales to which we will be leaving, its worrying.

Thank you for returning to the forum to post further information.

The fact that there are over 20 employees, this is a collective redundancy situation as twenty or more employees are to be made redundant within a period of ninety days or less.

When facing the possibility of redundancies, your employer should determine which employees are “performing the work of a particular kind” that has either ceased or diminished. This is known as the selection pool. Your employer must be able to demonstrate that the system for choosing the pool is fair. If it cannot, then any redundancies could lead to claims for unfair dismissal. Has this information been relayed to you? There may be a customary arrangement for choosing a pool (this may be found in your employee handbook or trade union agreement), If there is no customary arrangement or procedure, your employer simply needs to show that it has considered the pool carefully and acted with genuine motives. The pool should contain all employees who perform the same or similar type of work in a particular department or at a relevant location.

Your employer is legally obliged to begin the process of redundancy consultation with your employee representative in good time and complete the process before any redundancy notices are issued to you.

The redundancy consultation process should include ways of avoiding the redundancy situation, reducing the number of dismissals and lessen the effects of any dismissals. Consultation should be genuine and must be undertaken with a view to reaching agreement with the employees’ representatives.

You state that your representative has told you that you will have to wait now until the packages are approved before we can get any further information from them, so we are just playing a waiting game to find out our leave date and our pay package?

To ensure that the redundancy consultation process is carried out constructively, your employee representative should have enough information about your employer’s proposals to be able to take a useful role. Your representative should be aware of facts including the numbers and descriptions of employees it is proposed to dismiss as redundant, the proposed method of selecting the employees who may be dismissed and the proposed method of calculating any redundancy payments, other than those required by statute that your employer proposes to make.

Redundancy notices can be issued only when the consultation has been completed. I would therefore suggest that the consultation is still ongoing with your representative and only once the consultation has reached agreement with will you know about a finalised package, date etc. You should also be aware of the selection criteria which is going to be used to determine those made redundant.

Your representative should be armed with information up to date information from your employer to offer you support and answer your concerns and worries. I would suggest that you contact your representative and raise your questions and concerns.

Although you have a representative, your employer should also follow a fair procedure with you, including informing you that a redundancy situation has commenced that you have been provisionally selected for redundancy, explaining the reasons for that selection. If you have any concerns or questions about the consultation, I would suggest that you speak with your HR Manager or Line Manager

Please keep us posted with the developments of this case as it's useful for others in similar situations. A forum advisor may also be able to make further recommendations.

I really hope this has helped.

Thank you so much again for taking the time to write usch a detailed response.

Really the only information that has been provided by the reps is whose roles are going, and the organisational restructure (that has now been announced to the whole company). We have not yet had the reason/ strategy behind the decision that has been made, and from what I gather some people may dispute the decisions that have been made.

We have not been given any propsed methods of how they will calculate the redundancy pay either, all has been very vague, our next meeting will take place next week so I am hoping to put forward some more questions then.

Your post has been of great help, I will keep you updated on what they have to tell us next week.
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