Are they trying to push her out???

Little Miss!

Morning all,

I'm hoping someone can help me here, my sis is in a bit of a panic so i thought i'd get on here and see could i get some advice.

So the story goes...

She's been working for 4 years as receptionist with a particular company, things in this company have been very quiet since recession hit, she was cut to short time and only works mon, tues, weds now. There are 2 other girls working in the office doing accounts or somethin.

Recently her boss called her in and told her as things were so quiet he didn't have enough work for all 3 to do and said the girl in accounts might have to take over her receptionist position and her job would be gone. Can her boss do this, even tho she was employed as receptionist?

Now the next problem, after more or less implying that her role would be gone, her boss then mentioned another position, in a different department but still within the company the might be available soon and would she be interested in this position. She's very confused as she doesn't trust her boss and thinks he's tryin to push her out.

Can anyone give some advice or opinions on this as i feel useless to her at the min

Sleipnir

Tricky alright. Technically, it's the position i.e. receptionist that is redundant and the receptionist is then made redundant but this position isn't technically redundant as there's still receptionist work to be done.
Also, if he offers her another position in the company, refusal could mean that she would lose out on redundancy entitlements unless it's a job with less seniority or something like that.

The best advice is to contact NERA http://www.employmentrights.ie/en/

Little Miss!

Yeh see that's another question, if she does move to this other position will she lose her redundancy? Or is redundancy paid from the date she started with the company?

Sleipnir

No, it's from the date she starts but if they say;
"That position is redundant, here's a similar one for the same pay" and she refuses, it might affect her claim on any redundancy payments. I'm not 100% sure about that though so your friend should check it out with NERA before making any decision.

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Little Miss!

Thanks so much for the advice i guess she'll just have to call them on monday.

She did say her boss mentioned that this other position would be the same money and hours. I think she's just worried her boss is tryin to push her out as she knows he's needs to loose 6/7 staff.

leeroybrown

It's very important to remember that the company can make the 'receptionist' position redundant then create a new position 'receptionist/accounts' and move the other person to that position. So long as some of duties involved in the new position are different then it'll likely be legal. It's a very common way for companies to deal with redundancy when downsizing.

The employer is supposed to make a reasonable offer of alternate work if possible. As Sleipnir points out, is she refuses the alternate employment then she could end up losing her redundancy payment.

Finally, it's also worth considering the implications of short-time working on redundancy payments. If an employee is on short-time for over 12 months and hasn't been making a continuous effort to get the company to put them back on full-time hours then their redundancy payment would likely be judged to be based on the reduced hours.

Little Miss!

Thanks leroy for the reply,

i think she's afraid that the new position will dry up in the future too, meaning she thinks that this position too will get quieter and therefore thinks her boss will get other staff to do that position too and she'll be left with nothing

Little Miss!

Thanks again all for the replies. I've told her to contact the nera today so hopefully they'll give her some advice.

If anyone else has any experience with this please give ur advice all is welcome

Maglight

Let's work from the assumption that your sister's boss is a decent person who is simply trying to weather the recession as best as possible and do the right thing by the staff. So far the company appears to have been fairly straight with your sister. They put her on short time, but they didn't let her go entirely. Now it looks that they have decided to do away with the receptionist position and merge it with a more senior role in Accounts. So she's out of a job unless she takes the alternate job offered. Yes, that may dry up too, but at least she stays in employment for a bit longer and it buys her time to look about for something better.

In a case like this it's better not to over analyse the situation. The choice is between no job or an alternative job. Take the other job, unless it's really a dreadful job. She will still qualify for redundancy if that job dries up later.