Employment Question

dazzerd · 3 Dec 2020 at 15:23

Final appeal has failed so they wont make me a homeworker. I suppose the next step is deciding whether I sign or not. One thing which puzzles me is we dont formally move until April 2021. So as the redundancy is due to a change of location not the removal of a role, surely they cant make me redundant until the office move actually takes place? Which means I could just hold out till April and make a call then??

Kill_Phil · 7 Dec 2020 at 06:56

dazzerd said:
Final appeal has failed so they wont make me a homeworker. I suppose the next step is deciding whether I sign or not. One thing which puzzles me is we dont formally move until April 2021. So as the redundancy is due to a change of location not the removal of a role, surely they cant make me redundant until the office move actually takes place? Which means I could just hold out till April and make a call then??

Ahh bummer

I'm guessing you may have a 3 month notice period? If so they'll likely issue you your notice of redundancy so they don't have to fork out for PILON

Haggisman · 7 Dec 2020 at 09:02

After doing a 45+ minute commute for 18 months, the job would have to be pretty spectacular for me to consider anything over 30 minutes again (although if I was only in the office couple of days/week then maybe).

It really impacts your quality of life, 90 minutes each way is adding almost 50% on to your working day, assuming you do 9-5, you'll be leaving the house at ~7.30am and getting home at ~6.30pm.

Sounds like since the appeal has failed, you only really have 2 options at the moment - take the redundancy, or accept the contract, but start looking for a new position immediately.

It depends what your current financial situation is like (e.g. do you have savings to cover several months out of work) and how confident you are in finding something else in the next 3 months, but if I were in your position in the current market, I'd be going for option B. You've got 2 years to find a new job before you take the financial hit. The commute time is going to suck, but at least the money will still be coming in which will take the pressure off.

dazzerd · 7 Dec 2020 at 14:53

Kill_Phil said:
Ahh bummer

I'm guessing you may have a 3 month notice period? If so they'll likely issue you your notice of redundancy so they don't have to fork out for PILON

Yes 3 months so I'm thinking I'll need a job by July if they let send me notice in April. What's pilon lol?

MrRockliffe · 7 Dec 2020 at 15:00

Sounds like the best thing to do is take the new contract and immediately begin to look for work :-)

Your travel is being paid for 2 years

Quartz · 7 Dec 2020 at 16:17

dazzerd said:
What's pilon lol?

Pay In Lieu Of Notice.

MrRockliffe said:
Your travel is being paid for 2 years

But he's not being compensated for the extra time.

Kill_Phil · 7 Dec 2020 at 16:36

dazzerd said:
Yes 3 months so I'm thinking I'll need a job by July if they let send me notice in April. What's pilon lol?

Yeah as above payment in lieu. Its unclear where you may be up to in the redundancy process but I'd be careful. Have they given you a deadline to sign? If they have and dependent on where you are up to they may service the 3 months notice imminently so you will leave come April.

You may be best getting proper advice

MrRockliffe · 7 Dec 2020 at 16:36

Quartz said:
But he's not being compensated for the extra time.

No but his alternative is not having a job and trying to get one within 3 months - that's a recipe for disaster regardless of how good you are at your job. And he only has to do it 3 days a week :-)

Martynt74 · 7 Dec 2020 at 16:39

Quartz said:
Pay In Lieu Of Notice.

But he's not being compensated for the extra time.

Yeah, but when are employees ever paid based on commuting time?

It's a crap situation, but there's a lot of people who have much longer commutes and i'm sure they don't expect more pay than someone who lives round the corner.

dazzerd · 7 Dec 2020 at 21:17

Dunno I'm due a meeting with HR as deadline to respond was today but I told them I couldn't sign as they have still not specified the consequences of not signing. It's all very odd it's as if they want to find out how many people won't sign before they make specific there position. Regarding pilon I'm not sure it matters, as I say I don't think they can actually make me redundant until the formal office move anyway which is April.

But to be clear they are still not stating if redundancy is the next step.

They could play hardball I suppose and state the move is reasonable so you have to go or you are in breach of contract.

Or the other alternative I can see is they find out that too many people refuse to move so they carry on renting space in the old office.

It really is a shambles, probably because the new owners are foreign and they have had to hire a completely new HR department to deal with it as none of our old HR staff were tuped.