advice on redundancy

Specialun

Morning

I work for a large multi national company. They have decided to restructure one team/Move in country and as such offer redundancy or take a lesser job on same OTE.

Essentially they told of the restructuring, called us into meetings virtually with very little info. Sent us an at risk letter and let is stew for a day and then decided to come back with terms drip fed through an email. The team is an over performing sales team.

The company has not offered any legal counsel and have pushed for decision by Early this week as "They want to move on with the process". Your decision is if you want to take the package or interview for internal role. The internal role is same OTE (Told us this after 2 days but its a lesser role) The package is rubbish as A) The team is a team of over performers Its only this team being restructered C) Covid. The package is 2 wk

What advise do you have guys/gals? Should i seek legal advise? Should I attempt to renegotiate? They have given us 30 days notice but they want to rush it through. The only terms ive seen are in a FAO email. They told me to calculate my own package and my own tax implications

I dont want to be the ahole as this is a small area and word can spread. However I dont know if they have followed process and I also feel that the package is poor. Also its been done in a bad way as they dont know what theyre doing

Any advice? Do companies increase packages? How much would an employment solicitor cost?

blindsider

American MNC? They are notoriously cut-throat. Someone in an ivory tower is doing this to hit their numbers - you don't matter at all!

2 weeks per yr is the statutory minimum - however, many companies won't offer more.

It sounds like they're doing the bare minimum to advise you of the process - do you have in-country HR? Remember that they work for the company and are not your friend, but they might be more approachable.

Getting a job with another company right now might be tough - would you do the interview, (hopefully) get the job and then look around later in the year or early next yr, post-COVID?

An initial consultation with an EL solicitor is an option - agree the consult fee in advance - €100 for 30 mins ??? although a free initial meeting is not unheard of...- you could send them an outline of the situation in advance. If you haven't been with the company for 2yrs+, your chances of a successful legal challenge are quite small.

https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/what_you_should_know/ending%20the%20employment%20relationship/collective%20redundancies/

the company does have some obligations though e.g. Collective Redundancies.

One scenario...If there are 10 on your team and the company employs 50-100 people in Ireland, then they need to follow the Collective Redundancy protocol.


Last point, taking a case etc can be quite stressful, and the € reward may be very small. It would be much easier to try to get a role on the other team on the same OTE. Long term, it would be worth reviewing your career path and deciding on priorities.

Best of luck!

beauf

With just the statutory on offer, they aren't encouraging people to leave.
They just want to people to tale the "lesser" roles what ever that meant.
If its otherwise the same it seems to makes sense to take that.

If you get a better role somewhere else. You are free to do that at any time. But its much easier to do that when you in a job.

beauf

If a company doesn't get what it wants out of a voluntary redundancy they can have further rounds and even an involuntary round of redundancies.

I don't think thats what they are doing here. I don't really understand the objective. Unless it was some way of changing peoples contracts for some reason.

nickkinneg

My experience with solicitor and barrister (for a completely different situation) a civil case is that it is a very very expensive process - although I did read there are plans to limit what they can charge which may become legislation - Ireland has one of the highest costs for litigation in the world I think. - surprise surprise (not really)

mcgragger

Specialun wrote: »

Morning

I work for a large multi national company. They have decided to restructure one team/Move in country and as such offer redundancy or take a lesser job on same OTE.

Essentially they told of the restructuring, called us into meetings virtually with very little info. Sent us an at risk letter and let is stew for a day and then decided to come back with terms drip fed through an email. The team is an over performing sales team.

The company has not offered any legal counsel and have pushed for decision by Early this week as "They want to move on with the process". Your decision is if you want to take the package or interview for internal role. The internal role is same OTE (Told us this after 2 days but its a lesser role) The package is rubbish as A) The team is a team of over performers Its only this team being restructered C) Covid. The package is 2 wk

What advise do you have guys/gals? Should i seek legal advise? Should I attempt to renegotiate? They have given us 30 days notice but they want to rush it through. The only terms ive seen are in a FAO email. They told me to calculate my own package and my own tax implications

I dont want to be the ahole as this is a small area and word can spread. However I dont know if they have followed process and I also feel that the package is poor. Also its been done in a bad way as they dont know what theyre doing

Any advice? Do companies increase packages? How much would an employment solicitor cost?

Get advice from a solicitor it won't do any harm.
Redundancies have a process to follow in this country and it looks like they are trying to get that done before anyone gets to complain.

Your tenure needs to be considered. If you are not there long you're wasting your time taking a case as any pay out will be low.
Is the two weeks capped at 600 a week ?

Sounds like they are not a nice bunch so leave if you can with a few quid but not until you've taken legal advice and considered your tenure

beauf

I assume if this is a sales team who ever perform, they must be on good money. I wouldn't be walking out on that on a whim.

A lot of the sales people I know, their work as dried up over COVID.

Specialun

thanks for the feedback guys. just to clarify i have been with the company for 4.5 years so my package is around 17.5k with stat and the 2 week top up.

what i mean by lesser job is that the roles being offered are not the same in customers and different make up.

just to throw into the mix by law if a person is paying into company pension less than 2 years then the company can withdraw their matched contribution. looks like these guys are withdrawing their contribution if this is the case and if you leave

the company have yet to discuss this individually. they just sent out an faq and an excel spreadsheet to calculate redundancies. when i asked on tax they said thats for you to figure out

also to clarify its 2 week stat plus 2 week top up

beauf

Some companies you'd have to dispose of massive amounts of share options as well.
You can be sure some bean counter is looking at the bottom line, and not the ripple this causes through a business.

But none of this is your issue. This becomes every man for himself. So you have to decide if over the next 12 months are you better in or out.
This will very much depends on what you think will be the environment afterwards. Will you be happier there or somewhere else.

What offers you'd get elsewhere, you'd only know by testing the waters, with interviews etc. But they haven't given you time to find out.

Outkast_IRE

If your in a area where there are plenty of jobs going , take the money and run, spend a few days doing up the CV and fire them out.



I know in my own area i would bite the hand off someone for redundancy and be setup in a new job pretty much as soon as i wanted.

ari101

Specialun wrote: »

thanks for the feedback guys. just to clarify i have been with the company for 4.5 years so my package is around 17.5k with stat and the 2 week top up.

just to throw into the mix by law if a person is paying into company pension less than 2 years then the company can withdraw their matched contribution. looks like these guys are withdrawing their contribution if this is the case and if you leave

the company have yet to discuss this individually. they just sent out an faq and an excel spreadsheet to calculate redundancies. when i asked on tax they said thats for you to figure out

Have you made any transfers into the pension from other pensions, if so that may invalidate the two year rule? Otherwise they can take their money and likely won't be willing to set precedent and make an exception for you.

At that level of payment (17.5 incl stat) you should be able to get it all tax free I would have thought...? But if part ends up being taxed upfront you can to apply to revenue for tax back.

There is good advice already from other posters on the decision itself, best of luck weighing up your options.

beauf

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

If your in a area where there are plenty of jobs going , take the money and run, spend a few days doing up the CV and fire them out.



I know in my own area i would bite the hand off someone for redundancy and be setup in a new job pretty much as soon as i wanted.

For me any alternatives I would have been considering would have involved a lot worse commuting, and long hours in the office, often on old systems. After C19, a lot of these have already opened up with WFH options, and a lot have already updated their systems to facilitate this. But also their business processes.

Outkast_IRE

beauf wrote: »

For me any alternatives I would have been considering would have involved a lot worse commuting, and long hours in the office, often on old systems. After C19, a lot of these have already opened up with WFH options, and a lot have already updated their systems to facilitate this. But also their business processes.

So does this sound like you would be willing to apply for other jobs ?

beauf

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

So does this sound like you would be willing to apply for other jobs ?

If you mean now yes. But I'm not in a voluntary redundancy situation so it's not really comparible to the OP. I'm also in a different industry.

If you mean in the past, I have been offered Voluntary Redundancy and took it at that time. But that was more about wanting a change for other reasons than purely financial, or career progression.