it’s also crap making people redundant.

One of the least pleasant things I’ve ever done. The most unpleasant was serving an eviction and turfing a family with a young child onto the streets…..

Been there too – two years ago planning to make two jobs redundant over Christmas with my business partner. This year we’ve taken two people on again and looking to take at least one more on next year.

So, can be shit but hopefully for some it can have a good outcome eventually.

footflaps – Member
One of the least pleasant things I’ve ever done. The most unpleasant was serving an eviction and turfing a family with a young child onto the streets…..

Is that your decision or someone else?

😯

Slight twist on the redundancy experience for me this year. Managed to get a new role today after having no contract since the end of September. Won’t pretend my situation is as desperate as many but so grateful to secure some work today. Feeling very relieved indeed.

Nope, Ive just set up my own company and I’m turning work down…
Not wanting to sound a knob or anything, but Mobile Telecomms is booming at the minute..
Day rates haven’t been higher for a long, long time..
And it’s showing no sign of slowing down. I’ll have broken even by the end of Jan, and I started at the end of October.

Me last tuesday. off sick 4 months(starting back jan 2nd) and get phone call off work mate to tell me liquidators have taken all vans and everyone is out

edlong, you make a good point about the one person having to have the same difficult talk with many people,, not easy. My last company director couldnt face this so he dodged it and got someone else from another office to manage it for him….. I thought less of him for that as it sort of comes with teh territory…

Just as a matter of interest, if your having these conversations now…. roughly how long before now were the initial thoughts about having to make redundancies, ie, the lead time to the “at risk” conversations…

10 weeks ? 6 months ? 1 year ?

Completely understand if you cant say.

You make a good point edlong. It often gets forgotten. I remember around the time of the miners strike. My girlfriend at the time had an uncle who was a pit manager. A lovely bloke. When they closed it, he had to get them all one by one, and give them their cards. Blokes who he’d worked with for 30 years.

I’m sure he had all the reactions you mentioned. He was devastated by what he had to do. It absolutely destroyed him.

Teetosugars – Member

Nope, Ive just set up my own company and I’m turning work down…

Are you OK if I drop you a quick mail?

Not this year, but in 2012 I was made redundant at the Christmas party.

A week later, got a job with a partner company. Month later, another redundancy.

Business was Business.

>One of the least pleasant things I’ve ever done. The most unpleasant was serving an eviction and turfing a family with a young child onto the streets…..
Is that your decision or someone else?

To be fair in these cases it’s never a surprise when they’re turfed out – plenty of time to sort something out but if they don’t then who’s faults that? I am not a landlord – partly as would hate to have to deal with things like this.

I was a plasterer for 20 years,until I was self employed Christmas was when the axe would swing. Crap,three weeks wages and no/little prospect of anything else till March. I retrained as a teacher and don’t ever pass 23rd December without a shudder. My thoughts are with anybody who is facing uncertaintly this year.

Currently on garden leave with my last day 23rd January. In continuous employment for 29 years, so redundancy is good. Sadly not old enough (or rich enough) to retire so I need to find another job. However enjoying the chance to ride some more, but feeling guilty for not finding another job yet

Is that your decision or someone else?

Our decision, we can’t afford to indefinitely pay the mortgage on a flat where the tenant doesn’t pay rent. From start to finish we lost about £6k over 6 months in lost rent / solicitor / barrister / court fees / redecorating the place post eviction.

Just as a matter of interest, if your having these conversations now…. roughly how long before now were the initial thoughts about having to make redundancies, ie, the lead time to the “at risk” conversations…

Interesting question that – I used to work in the commercial sector, and the big, mass Christmas redundancy office closure I wrote about yesterday was a done deal by the time any of us got the slightest hint, I wasn’t party to the decision making process but I’m sure they hadn’t had the idea that morning…

My current situation is a bit different – I work for a charity and we try as hard as we can to do right by our people. So the short answer is, as soon as we know, they know.

The slightly longer answer is that we’ll work it out together. As FD, I’m not going to teams and saying “we’ve got to save £100K next year, so you’re going to lose x FTE staff”, I’m saying “we have a budget gap next year of £100K. We either need to find another £100K of funding, or save £100K of expense. If we don’t find it as income, saving £100K would be equivalent to losing x FTE staff if we don’t find any other savings” (The nature of our activities are that the vast majority of our costs are the staff – we can’t manage a 15% funding cut by cutting back on the paperclip budget). Then we’ll talk about it, and explore the options. If it comes down to compulsory redundancies, everyone knows why, at least, and it’s not coming as a bolt from the blue.

Worst case, everyone understands what is happening and why, and it makes the process less painful for all concerned. Best case, we come up with ways to avoid redundancies.