Pre-determined Redundancy query

[sbridgey]

Context---

I work as a Principal Software Engineer for a fairly small tech company (<200 employees globally) headquartered in Leicester but now owned by an American investment company that came in allowing us to re-platform onto the AWS cloud. The C suite are slowly being replaced with US-based leaders who despise anyone with an opinion or experience in the domain or modern tech practices. The US leaders unsurprisingly want to re-build our new software as cheaply as possible using monolith architectures, single database instances etc. Those of us in the UK have seen this before and know that this will create short-term success and a lot of long-term pain. The US leadership sees us as a pain and just creating extra complexity to slow everything down, seemingly not appreciating our long-term strategy.

There also seems to be a weird cost-cutting culture, we are hiring engineers based in California ($$$) but i have also seen an increase in the use of offshore development resources from India ($). All the while cutting sales and marketing departments because we can't afford the headcount anymore.

---

I have been off sick for the past week and a half and during that time I got quite bored so decided to go looking around the Miro boards to see what the future plans were. I stumbled across a board showing the plans for the team structures for 2024 at a high level but including myself, my role and my peers.

Looking at the plans I can see that I exist until February and by the time July comes around myself, my boss and a couple of my peers are no longer there, i can see my teams product is absorbed into one of my peers teams and there are plans to only have a UK headcount of 5 FTE.

To me this is pretty clear, i am going to be made redundant at some point next year.

I am wondering what the legalities are over my finding this and if there is anything i can do now to enhance my position?

I think from the opening paragraph it is clear that this company is not where i want to work long term but with the current job market not being that strong i am struggling to find many opportunities offering even a matching salary where i dont have to commute to London once a week so need to make sure i am protecting myself the best i can until i can find something new.

[StevieBee]

sbridgey said:

I am wondering what the legalities are over my finding this and if there is anything i can do now to enhance my position?.

To answer the first part of the question, that is entirely dependent upon whether you had legal access to the information or if you you gained access through deceit, unfair advantage, etc. And the company not protecting the information when they should have done is not a sound legal argument to support you looking.

Assuming you had the right to view it, then you have the right to act upon it. Whether you choose to do so is another matter. You don't want to start making a fuss only to find that your name or role is quoted elsewhere for something bigger and better!

[PushedDover]

Print it, date stamped and keep.
And also start a journal...... log all the day to day and anything that may or may not be useful in the future.

[sbridgey]

StevieBee said:

To answer the first part of the question, that is entirely dependent upon whether you had legal access to the information or if you you gained access through deceit, unfair advantage, etc. And the company not protecting the information when they should have done is not a sound legal argument to support you looking.

Assuming you had the right to view it, then you have the right to act upon it. Whether you choose to do so is another matter. You don't want to start making a fuss only to find that your name or role is quoted elsewhere for something bigger and better!

Thanks for the detailed response, I highly doubt I was supposed to be able to see the document, I just found it in the organisations recent documents section.

Yeah I’m worried about making a fuss as you say due to potentially missing out on a bigger role. I do think that is unlikely though with the current Californian bias of the organisation.

[sbridgey]

So... it happened today. Lots of small groups on engineers selected per job title and told that only x number in the group are required.

My group the, principal engineers, is going from 6 down to 3.

The good news is that I have already got a new job lined up with a decent payrise too.

Now it gets more interesting... i found out when doing my SA tax return that my employer underpaid my student loan by ~£1400 in 2022/23 an of course HMRC want me to pay it now! I informed my employer who have eventually agreed that they made a mistake and it was due to them not explaining to me that I am liable for the student loan on referral bonuses but not the tax/ni contributions. They have agreed that it was a mistake and they will handle it differently in the future. However they do not wish to pay for mistake leaving me in a net pay deficit of £1400.

Couple this with the information i know regarding the decision for redundancy selection already being made I am wondering how to play this, I need to take voluntary redundancy where i think i will just get 2 weeks tax free pay at stat rates (£1300).

I am thinking i should try and get the student loan included in a settlement agreement and that I should also mention that the process is clearly unfair showing them the details i have and see what happens.

What i am nervous of is others in the group getting job offers in the next 2 weeks and beating me to voluntary, i know one guy is already taking it and possibly another if the deal is good.

[Jasandjules]

sbridgey said:

The good news is that I have already got a new job lined up with a decent payrise too.

When does the new role start? Have you already had a formal offer? (I say this because there are terms in some settlement agreements that will ask you to confirm that you have not)
What is your notice period? Have you been provided with a draft settlement agreement?

[sbridgey]

Jasandjules said:

When does the new role start? Have you already had a formal offer? (I say this because there are terms in some settlement agreements that will ask you to confirm that you have not)
What is your notice period? Have you been provided with a draft settlement agreement?

I've not agreed a new start date as yet but i have received a formal offer which i have accepted.

My notice is 4 weeks, no draft settlement has been sent, I have only had a meeting where a director, CTO and HR said you guys are at risk it's 2 weeks consultation, we'll set up individual meetings on wednesday

[Alex Z]

Good luck with the exit plan.

Re. the replacing UK staff with Indian and US folk, the first lot are half to a third the cost of someone here. The US folk will be 1.5 to 2x more costly but they will take virtually no holiday and can easily be made to do 60 hours a week.

[Countdown]

FWIW I don’t think you’re “in deficit” re: the student loan. They should have deducted from your net pay and handed over to HMRC. It looks like they forgot to deduct/pay over but you won’t be any worse off when you make payment.

[sbridgey]

Countdown said:

FWIW I don’t think you’re “in deficit” re: the student loan. They should have deducted from your net pay and handed over to HMRC. It looks like they forgot to deduct/pay over but you won’t be any worse off when you make payment.

Yeah i had this thought too then i checked my emails and was told i was getting a £9k net pay bonus, this should therefore cover student loan.

At the end of the day though if i do have to pay it myself then it just means my loan is paid off a little earlier than expected

[Mr E]

If the VR offer is as poor as you describe, why do you care if someone else beats you to it. Just resign a d start the new role.

[Panamax]

Mr E said:

If the VR offer is as poor as you describe, why do you care if someone else beats you to it. Just resign and start the new role.

Exactly. And if the payment of student loan was contractual then you can either press for it now or claim for it in due course.

[sbridgey]

Both good points

I guess I am being hopeful that an extra few quid will go nicely towards the ohlins I want for my 911

[Jasandjules]

sbridgey said:

I've not agreed a new start date as yet but i have received a formal offer which i have accepted.

My notice is 4 weeks, no draft settlement has been sent, I have only had a meeting where a director, CTO and HR said you guys are at risk it's 2 weeks consultation, we'll set up individual meetings on wednesday

Ok in your shoes I would be asking them for a draft SA right now (assuming you would be willing to take a deal). Then you can see if such clauses exist and what may be offered, the sooner you know this the better IMHO.

And it will sav what is I believe a waste of time consultation - they will ask if you have any ideas of how to save your job and no matter what you propose it would not be viable to the business............. Why bother with the hassle?

[fat80b]

Jasandjules said:

sbridgey said:

I've not agreed a new start date as yet but i have received a formal offer which i have accepted.

My notice is 4 weeks, no draft settlement has been sent, I have only had a meeting where a director, CTO and HR said you guys are at risk it's 2 weeks consultation, we'll set up individual meetings on wednesday

Ok in your shoes I would be asking them for a draft SA right now (assuming you would be willing to take a deal). Then you can see if such clauses exist and what may be offered, the sooner you know this the better IMHO.

I'd get in there first and ask for a meeting / protected conversation with the bod in HR that is going to be doing the dirty work - If you can get a discussion with them, you can be quite direct - it is likely in their best interests to get someone's name on a list asap.

- i.e. just say you want to take VR to make their life easier, and ask them what the terms are etc. If you move quickly, you might well be able to get it all sorted in a couple of weeks and then move on to your new job with a minimum of fuss and a maximum amount of cash.

[sbridgey]

sunnyb13 said:

How long have you been employed by them, over 2 years or under?

its 2.5 years

[Mr E]

sbridgey said:

Both good points

I guess I am being hopeful that an extra few quid will go nicely towards the ohlins I want for my 911

An excellent consideration

[sbridgey]

Jasandjules said:

sbridgey said:

I've not agreed a new start date as yet but i have received a formal offer which i have accepted.

My notice is 4 weeks, no draft settlement has been sent, I have only had a meeting where a director, CTO and HR said you guys are at risk it's 2 weeks consultation, we'll set up individual meetings on wednesday

Ok in your shoes I would be asking them for a draft SA right now (assuming you would be willing to take a deal). Then you can see if such clauses exist and what may be offered, the sooner you know this the better IMHO.

And it will sav what is I believe a waste of time consultation - they will ask if you have any ideas of how to save your job and no matter what you propose it would not be viable to the business............. Why bother with the hassle?

Asked for a draft SA.. been told that its not a settlement situation.

hearing rumours that people have been offered less for voluntary than if they are let go at the end of the process.

[Jasandjules]

sbridgey said:

Asked for a draft SA.. been told that its not a settlement situation.

hearing rumours that people have been offered less for voluntary than if they are let go at the end of the process.

None of that makes sense. Otherwise their position is just we are going to go through the process and people who can then sue us?! That is not logical.

I guess time will tell what they do but that is most odd in my view.

[sbridgey]

Jasandjules said:

None of that makes sense. Otherwise their position is just we are going to go through the process and people who can then sue us?! That is not logical.

I guess time will tell what they do but that is most odd in my view.

I think they are just trying to stack the deck to keep certain people and incentivise others to leave.

They even set up the consultation call order to prioritise the people i know they want to go and leave the rest that they want to keep until the end of the day.

I've managed to get myself the third call in my group to stand a chance at getting a voluntary slot, i've also been informed by HR that i am being offered enhanced and it makes no difference if i take voluntary or not.

I've been referred to the CFO for the student loan issue as they wont look at it as part of settlement... he is saying he is looking into it but i am going to guess if i take voluntary they will just make it drag...

I've also spoken to my neighbour who is a solicitor in this field and advises from the companies side typically and he has suggested that i could get them to state in the notes that there is no new org chart and that nothing is already decided then if it comes to it i can show them my screenshots which would put them in a pretty awkward situation.