Making someone redundant

Well I had to do it today. I have been dreading the moment and I really didn't want to do it but it is a genuine redundancy situation. I have just told the person concerned and she took it so well - she said she had realised that the work she does was drying up and that we could not go on indefinitely, so she was actually pleased and even more so when I told her that I was paying her a month's money but did not expect her to work it.

Not a nice thing to do...

Havent you had to do that before Ed ?

your the BOSS Ed what you say goes mate, glad she took it well tho.

I don't envy that job ... I've been through several rounds of redundancy with a former employer. I was employed by them for a total of 11.5 years and in that time, I think we went through about 5 or 6 "rounds of redundancies". Each one seemed to hit the same departments over and over ... middle management, then IT (probably 2 of the biggest salaried departments, beneath directors). Each one was an awful thing to have to go through.

In one round they handled it spectacularly badly ...

They had about 6 or 8 people from IT to make redundant and they (HR I think) had decided that the "best way" to do this would be to phone people at their desks and ask them to come to a meeting room and to bring all their belongings with them (from whence they would be escorted off the premises - not because the company feared they would do anything bad - it was just company policy due to most of IT having access to "sensitive data").

The first 2 or 3 went un-noticed, but then people eventually cottoned on to what was happening ... so rather than people sat around, head-down, working, phones ringing as usual, everyone was sat there in almost stunned silence waiting for a phone to ring ... then a phone rings ... and everyone looks round at this poor guy. Then we hear another guy at the other end of the office saying down his phone "Chris XXXXXXX .... c'mon on down!" (in a "price is right" kinda way). The humour was kind of welcome in a sick sort of way as it helped to lighten what was already a stressful situation, however that moment was short-lived for when the practical joker hung up his phone laughing his man-breasts off, his phone started ringing ... all he could do was put the phone down and say "see ya folks" ... the irony was that the guy he had called also was next on their "hit-list".

Like I say ... handled very badly indeed.

Managed to avoid the bullet that day, but 6 months later ... I was one of the redundant ones ... and to be honest, it was the best thing that has ever happened to me! I got 3 months "paid leave" (they had to give us 90 days notice because they were intending on making more than 100 people redundant), and I left for a much better job! Although I narrowly missed out on any redundancy money because I took the job 2 weeks before my official redundancy date and therefore had to give my notice (I effectively left before they made my redundancy official).

My uncle has had to do a similar thing though Ed, only some of the workers he had to make redundant he had been working below, alongside and above for the past 20 - 30 years - he just couldn't do that anymore and left the company himself after the last round of redundancies.

[timwilky]

Making people redundant is horrid. I must have done this exercise about 8 times. It is far worse than sacking someone because you know they have done nothing to deserve loosing their jobs.

I was once in the position where I had to loose 20 developers. I agonised for weeks over who stayed, who went. It honestly made me sick, I had worked with these people for years. Many had become personal friends, I had been to parties/weddings etc.

The worst time was I had to make a guy who was going through marriage difficulties redundant. He was oblivious to the fact the he was at risk. He had decided to buy a new house to keep his wife happy, I was dropping as many hints as I could like "Is it the right time to be buying a house when you know the company has announced a redundancy programme" He honestly thought because of the nature of the work he did that he was bullet proof. He had not understood that because we were stopping engineering in the UK, that we would no longer require any CAE experts. Usually redundancy candidates were my own choice. However, I was told by my director that this guy was to be number one on the list.


Ed, you have my sympathy. Redundancy is a horrid thing to have to do.

Originally Posted by stewie

Havent you had to do that before Ed ?

Sorry, didnt mean it that way, just meant havent you had to let people go before, its horrible, unless there a ******* of course

Originally Posted by stewie

Sorry, didnt mean it that way, just meant havent you had to let people go before, its horrible, unless there a ******* of course

Nearly, in a manner of speaking - our former book-keeper and today's person had a huge bust up and I determined that one had to go. I agonised over that too - and then Lisa the book-keeper resigned, so it saved me having to do anything drastic.

we lost 23 drivers in january, mostly decent lads, I should have been one of then by rights, was told later it was more about if you,re face fit than other things. Felt very guilty afterwards cos some really decent lads lost there jobs, then it started to come out what some of em had been up too and also the fact if they made me reudundant no one would want to take my job on. At the end of the day its your buisness and your liveliehood so you kinda got to look out for youself and family income first I suppose, tough though it may be.

had she not been there long then, dont forget a lot of people would like to be made redundant

Originally Posted by SmudgeK3

had she not been there long then, dont forget a lot of people would like to be made redundant

Slightly less than 11 months. The fact is that the business has grown so much that we need someone with more dedicated legal skills to support the fee-earning people, being able to register titles, issue proceedings, that sort of thing. We don't produce nearly as much paper as we did so the filing is next to nothing, and I'm implementing direct dial so that there is no telephone role.