Show less Show more. Can a volunteer for redundancy change their mind? Ask a question. Practical Law may have moderated questions and answers before publication. No answer to a question is legal advice and no lawyer-client relationship is created between the person asking the question and the person answering it. Where appropriate, you should consult your own lawyer for legal advice. Practical Law's employees are not practising solicitors or barristers. The Ask scope and rules apply.
Crisis, whether internal, industry-realted, national, or international, is extremely taxing on businesses. Companies often need to cut their spending to the bare minimum, and consequently may need to lay off employees. More recently, the Coronavirus Pandemic forced many businesses to temporarily close to stop the spread of the virus. Companies struggled to stay afloat, and had to furlough or let employees go.
When a business is downsizing or undergoing structural changes, redundancy often follows. Your employer can either give you notice of redundancy or give you the option to take voluntary redundancy. Voluntary redundancy is when an employer offers a financial incentive to an employee to leave the company of their own free will. An employer may offer voluntary redundancy because they need to slim down the workforce, selling the company or restructuring their business.
You may be tempted to take voluntary redundancy by the thought of a big pay off. Before volunteering for redundancy, you should consider the following factors.
Compulsory redundancy occurs when an employer decides to reduce staffing, but they choose who leaves. Although the employee can negotiate with their employer, the employee cannot ultimately refuse redundancy. This can be distressing for workers who do not wish to leave. If you are being made redundant, then you must be compensated for the loss of your job.
The exact amount and duration of the compensation will depend on the terms of your contract. If you lose your job and your ex-employer hires someone else to do the same work, this is not redundancy.
The size of a redundancy settlement is vital. The amount you get depends on several factors including the length of your employment at the company, your age, and your pay grade. Voluntary redundancy payouts from your employer are usually higher than statutory payments. These are the general guidelines:. You can use a voluntary redundancy calculator to calculate how much statutory redundancy you can get from the government.
The calculations are based on your age, the pay you received and how long you have been on the job. You must have worked for at least 2 years for your employer to qualify for statutory redundancy pay. Click here for an online calculator to work out your redundancy pay. First, add up your usual spending on housing, food, utilities, transportation, and other essentials.
Then, work out how long your redundancy payment will last. This will give you a good idea of how long you will have to find another job. Ask yourself: is this a realistic timeframe for you to find a new job?
If your answer to these questions is no, then this may not be the best option for you. If you are nearing retirement, then voluntary redundancy could be a good option as you may only have a few months left before you reach the pension age. Your employer may suggest that you voluntarily take early retirement instead.
You should thoroughly research both options and how they will impact your personal finances and pension differently. However, if you are not yet nearing retirement, then this may be the time to consider a change of career, so search for information about the job market before you take this life-changing step. It is important for you to make sure that you will be financially covered before deciding to go for redundancy.
You do not want to walk away from your current job position only to find that you have to take out payday loans online to pay for your living expenses. Take the time to come up with a realistic financial plan that will help you make the best decision.
You are likely to have difficulty here. Your role at work may have changed beyond all recognition or even disappeared altogether. It may also be that you work has dried up. In any of these scenarios, your employer may simply refuse to make you redundant. In many cases, this is for financial reasons- a long serving employee may otherwise be entitled to many thousands of pounds especially where there is an enhanced redundancy scheme. Contrary to what many believe, there is no easy path to insist that your employer makes your redundant, especially as you have no general duty to be provided with work save for some exceptions such as to maintain your professional skills or public profile.
So what could you do? Well, if your employer does not have the contractual right to change your role to a material extent without your consent, then you may be in a position to resign and claim constructive dismissal. This does not mean though that you would automatically receive your full redundancy pay. If you win a claim, you would be awarded a basic award by the Employment Tribunal, which happens to be the equivalent to statutory redundancy pay.
You may also be entitled to compensation for loss of earnings, but this would not necessarily include the enhanced redundancy pay. This would only be awarded as compensation if the Tribunal was convinced that you would have properly been made redundant had your employer not been in breach of contract for example, by changing your role.
This is not always an easy argument to win. There is also the possibility of raising a further argument to claim an enhanced redundancy payment. You may be able to argue that by changing your role unilaterally, your employer has actually dismissed you as a matter of law even if you have continued on the payroll for a short period.
This would then allow you to argue that you have been dismissed for reason of redundancy, and if this is accepted, then you would be contractually entitled to your enhanced redundancy pay. You could then seek an order from the Employment Tribunal for the redundancy payment forcing your employer to make this payment to you. These are very tricky legal arguments, but ones worth properly exploring. There is normally no legal obligation for your employer to offer you an appeal against dismissal in a redundancy situation unlike in disciplinary proceedings for misconduct.
A dismissal will not automatically be unfair if a dismissal is not offered. The ACAS code of practice does, however, say employers should be encouraged to offer an appeal in a redundancy situation. Furthermore, a tribunal could still find a dismissal to be unfair when having regard to all the relevant circumstances as they should and which includes whether the denying of an appeal fell outside the band of reasonable responses.
If this is the case, then you should be offered an appeal. A failure to do so could amount to a stronger claim for unfair dismissal assuming you have more than 2 years service. By not offering an appeal, there is finality in the selection process. On the other hand, allowing an appeal does have an advantage for an employer to fix some procedural flaws, for example a lack of consultation or not including a sufficient number of people in a selection pool.
This will take away from you what might have been enough to make a particular dismissal unfair, and you would lose the opportunity to then make that claim. This is because your appeal after having been won, with the procedural flaw then ironed out gives you no basis to make a claim- even if the decision to dismiss you still stands.
Please click here to go to the Maternity page. If you have been employed with your present employer for a minimum of 2 years, you are entitled at the very least to a minimum statutory redundancy payment from your employer. You may be entitled to a larger amount of compensation because your employer has a contractual redundancy scheme, or there is custom and practice of them providing enhanced payments.
Please click here to access the Landau Law redundancy payments calculator. This is correct as at Where your earnings vary each week, an average of the 12 week period leading up to the redundancy should be used. Find out how to calculate an average pay for bonuses and commission by clicking here and jumping to the. Gov site. Check what statutory redundancy payment you would be entitled to by clicking here to access the Landau Law Redundancy Calculator. Even if you are entitled to redundancy pay, there are reasons you may not be entitled to receive a payment, for example:.
Your redundancy pay statutory or contractual should be based on your normal weekly pay before you started your maternity leave. It should not be based on your statutory maternity pay or your contractual maternity pay. If you have contractual redundancy pay, then your employer should also base this on your normal pay before you went on maternity leave. Otherwise this could be pregnancy discrimination. If you are on maternity leave when you are made redundant then your statutory redundancy pay should be based on your normal weekly pay before you started your maternity leave.
You can contact the fund on If your employer has ceased trading but is not insolvent, you should write to your employer claiming the redundancy payment. If the employer does not pay the statutory redundancy pay, you must apply to an employment tribunal within six months of your dismissal.
You will need to raise a written grievance with your employer first. Please click here to go to the collective redundancies page.
Because redundancy is a form of dismissal, you will still be entitled to your statutory or contractual period of notice of dismissal, if your employer plans to make you redundant. If you have been given notice of redundancy, you are entitled to be paid for time off to look for a new job provided that you have a minimum of two years service this time can count up to the date of expiry of your notice.
The following employees are not entitled to paid time off to look for work:. Your employer has to give you reasonable time off. There is no definition of what is reasonable, but common sense usually prevails, for example, you may require further travel time depending on where you are located and your personal circumstances.
It will then attract tax at the appropriate rate. Please click here to go to the unfair dismissal page. Free initial consultation. No win- no fee. Our "1 day policy" concerns the free legal advice service as set out on our free employment law advice page. This provides certainty for you, so you are not left waiting.
In most cases, however, we are able to let you know the same day, and often within hours if we can take your matter forward. We are a leading firm of employment lawyers acting for clients in the City and throughout the UK, and have a vast experience in advising on redundancy matters. Please email us or call and ask to speak to Philip Landau or any member of the employment law team. Please click here for the possibility of a free initial consultation. Enter Email Confirm Email.
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