Help - alternative position offer...

Hi, I desperately need some advice...

My department is going through a restructure at present and i am worried as to the direction it is taking.

I received a letter stating that I am at risk of redundancy because 'there isnt a requirement to carry out the work I am currently doing'. I have since been told I am now officially a redeployee.

I feel that the company are trying to force me into a different role which I dont want to do. The background about my grade etc is that within my role there are 4 levels, 1,2,3 & 4, of which I am a 4. All of the levels have a different salary and role specification. I have previously completed role 3 (but this was over 4-5 years ago and this role has changed since then). There are no other roles with a level 4 within the site I work at.

I had a meeting with my manager and explained why the 4 other jobs within my grade banding (all lower than my current role) are not suitable for me, citing:

• Potential changes in hours (leading to increased childcare costs as well as problems collecting kids from nursery as I have to do this on some days my wife is at work).
• Changes in salary (stating that if they froze my salary, would this be permanently? as well as with our annual pay increase in Jan if my salary was frozen I would then be worse off as my salary had not risen in line with the rise in living expenses!)
• Change in work type - all four roles are consdirably different to my roles and very technical where mine is solely people focussed.
• Change in status - being at the top of my current grade banding, any other job would mean career progression has gone back over by at least 2-3 years.

Today I've had my next meeting with my manager and have been told redundancy is NOT an option.

I have been offered the P1 role (see my previous notes - I am P4 with 2 other levels between us) although all these roles are cosidered in 'level 8 banding'.

The differences in the roles (simplified) are:

• £10k in pay (although I know they might freeze my pay)
• Working hours could change
• New role is 100% customer facing, whereas current role is 0% customer facing
• The work I would be carrying out is completely different - I would be dealing with customers enquiries/complaints etc rather than providing coaching and support to other managers which I currently do

Should I sit tight and potentially go to an employment tribunal or take the offer which is on the table (which I dont want to do at all). I have been advised they may potentially come back to me and offer me the P2 or P3 roles further down the line. I've been told that an employment tribunal could cost between £10k-£15k which is very worrying for a parent with two children to support.

I need advice as this is properly playing with my head...

Well if your role is redundant then unless there is a suitable alternative available (or you elect to accept a non-suitable alternative), redundancy has to be an option. Your role isn't there so unless they are able to offer you something suitable, you are redundant whether they like it or not.

Leaving aside the pay issue and assuming they freeze your pay, then a change of hours (particularly where it impacts on personal family commitments) and entirely different job content (particularly where your skills/experience do not match) are certainly good examples of reason why a job wouldn't be classed as 'suitable'.

As to whether you refuse the offers and potentially go to a tribunal or accept them, that's something only you can decide. Where does the 10-15k for a tribunal come from? Have you looked into legal insurance you may have on your house insurance? You could consider a no win no fee lawyer. All options to reduce those costs for you. On the other hand even if you can get the costs of the tribunal down, that won't pay your mortgage in the meantime, so you need to think about likelihood of getting something else/whether you can manage for a few months.

The other thing to bear in mind is that unfair dismissal compensation is purely based on financial loss. So if you are reasonably confident you will be able to find work, the downside is it is therefore unlikely to be worthwhile pursuing a tribunal claim as your financial losses will diminish greatly, possibly making it not worth the expense/effort/stress.

it's impossible to tell you what to do, as I'm sure you realise, but those are some points that might help inform your decision.

The main problem is that the role offered is something I could do but i feel they are offering it to me as they know i have the intelligence to do it rather than actually thinking its a 'reasonable' alternative. I did this role, but this was over 10 years ago and it has changed massively since then. Its much more pressurised and systems used are vastly different.

I also would like to ask about a consistency issue. The admin guy on my team is going through this process also (he is ranked as a P1 in the structure discussed above) but has not been offered another role and is already going to outplacement meetings (which indicates to me that he is DEF getting redundancy). The role offered to me is a P1 role so cant understand why he hasnt been offered it too. He has never done that role before but could (with training) be able to do it.

Therefore do i have grounds to raise a grievance over the lack of consistency in the process? What would this achieve for me (as I've been advised to do this by someone else)?

I don't know about a grievance about that in itself, because as you say, what would that achieve. You would be saying that someone else's redundancy isn't genuine and is unfair dismissal, but it's for him to appeal the decision if he feels the role you mention is suitable and he hasn't been offered it.

You could certainly mention the consistency issue, but any case you have centres around whether the roles offered to you are 'suitable alternatives' or not, so you don't want to detract from that too much by saying they should have offered one of them to someone else. Mention it, but focus on the suitability or otherwise of the alternatives.

sorry - guess i didnt make it clear reading back my comments - the guy i mentioned and myself are both looking to be made redundant. The company is moving in a direction we dont like and are happy to take the money and chance our arms in the market - albeit a turbulent one.

Therefore I am looking for a case which I could present which would force my employers to offer me redundancy.

You need to focus on the roles you are being offered not being suitable then.

do u think that the role i am being offered is suitable and reasonable based on the info i have provided? I'm happy to provide any further info if you think it would help make a more informed decision. its a massive risk to take having a family to support to potentially take a multinational company to an employment tribunal if they dont offer me redundancy.

I was wondering whether some further information I have just remembered would strengthen my case:

Approx 4 years ago I was in a different department within the same company. They too went through a restructure where my position no longer existed - as per my current situation.

On that occasion I was offered redeployment to the team I now work for or redundancy - I was never offered redeployment back to the Position 1 which I am now faced with. I took redeployment as the redundancy offer wasnt worth leaving at that point. This was on the same hours and pay was frozen.

I was redeployed to a position 3 in the structure (as discussed in my original post) and after this I applied and was successful in gaining promotion to the position 4.

I would think that from a consistency point of view this must count for something??

Hi,

I would really appreciate some advice/comments on my last post as this whole situation is causing me some concern.

Thanks

ive requested a copy of my contract from my hr team to see what the clauses in it are.

What advice can you offer about the completely different role I am being offered? The role I have been offered is answering phone calls from customers/getting a million sales a week etc, whereas at the moment my current role is coaching the managers of agents who do the work I am being offered!

I have never worked to sales targets in our company and know this would give me huge amounts of stress and very unhappy.

It is also a move back by 3 grades within my current role level. Surely this is something which would deem this offer as not 'reasonable or suitable'.

For the record I want to be in a position to get redundancy. I have worked for my company for many years and feel the time is right to pursue other avenues, so any advice on how I can manipulate the situation to my advantage would be appreciated.