[Closed] Any expert HR / Legal types around - on what basis am I currently employed?

Hi all,

Bit of a funny one this but I tried Citizens Advice and they didn't know what the answer is.. so I'm trying on here just in case there's someone who might know.

For quite literally years I have been repeatedly working my notice after my role was made redundant. In that time I moved to a new division of the same company and have now worked there for more than 3 years in a series of consecutive temporary roles - with continuous employment the whole of that time.

Before each role I get a letter advising me that my redundancy termination date has changed and that I'm effectively working my notice until then.

The most recent / current letter (signed at the end of last year) had different wording - saying that if I was offered another temporary role then my notice of redundancy would be automatically retracted per company policy.

That happened a few months back when I moved projects immediately at the request of the business / due to a critical business problem that needed to be solved.

At the time I moved to my current role, I wrote to my current line manager to confirm that I was moving to the role and to playback our shared understanding of my duties would be- as we saw them at the time.

I received a written reply copying in the Manager's manager and stating the senior manager had approved it - HR were also copied. I then wrote to HR reconfirming I was starting the role and flagging an existing request I had already made for my notice of redundancy to be retracted. As well as the wording in the letter I signed the company also has a policy of retracting notices of redundancy after 2 years in temporary roles although HR aren't willing to explain why that hasn't happened in my case. I'm a "strong" performer on PDPs so I don't think what's happened since is a reflection on my performance.

At the end of last week I finally received a letter from HR about my new role. Although a 3 month delay sounds ridiculous it's actually pretty consistent with the other letters I've had - processes in HR don't work very well.

BUT - instead of telling me that my redundancy notice had been retracted as I expected, it confirmed yet another "temporary" role and informed me that I'd start to work my notice again today, with a termination date later in the year.

This clearly wasn't what I was expecting, and to that end between March and now I've declined offers to talk about other roles internally because I literally had no idea I would be back on notice and thought I was committed to something for 12-15 months.

I declined to sign the letter because of the above and raised points with HR regarding the failure to retract the notice or communicate anything in the interim period that would have informed me that I was still on notice -so basically by virtue of having said nothing for 3 months they can't say something completely contradictory with less than a week to go before my termination date.

I asked more detailed questions at the start of this week but even though my redundancy termination date was yesterday, HR declined to meet with me to discuss them, say when they would meet with me or say when they might have a response. They also refused to respond to any questions in writing or allow me to speak with the legal dept so I could ask them the same questions and get an answer before the redundancy date.

So basically I've spent the whole week sh44ting myself about whether yesterday was going to be my last day or not given I have signed nothing that takes me past June 30th. My line manager had no information from HR so I've basically only found out I wasn't made redundant yesterday by being able to work today.

So here's the question - I requested my redundancy notice was retracted based on my current agreement which said it would be if I was offered another temporary role. That happened months ago.

HR refused to discuss it so my termination date has come and gone without me having anything in writing to confirm my employment status after the termination date. I'm still working and my manager at least seems to be expecting I will still be working until later in July.

But on what basis am I working?

Does the fact I'm still working in the same role [u]after [/u]my redundancy date mean I've just gone back to being a full time employee not on notice by default? Has the notice expired automatically even though the employer is supposed to write to me to tell me?

I've tried very hard to avoid getting legal as I actually want to stay with the company. But in the absence of any communication from HR I'm not quite sure what to do - and I'm very reluctant to see a lawyer because of the significant cost involved - which I have no way of recovering.