Tell me your redundancy happy stories

First time I got made redundant (management clear out after a takeover), I was 30, had worked solidly since leaving school at 18, ended up doing sales at the big gym I trained at. Almost a gap year.

Got made redundant from that one when the chain went bust world wide about 12 months later - prompted us to up sticks and move to the Midlands where we could have a smaller mortgage and just about start a family on one salary.

Third time I was "redeployed" in a civil service office closure - ended up spending 15 years in the most varied and interesting job I've ever had.

Now 56 and if anyone offered me redundancy at the moment I would bite their hand off.

Only been made redundant once. One side of the company dragged the whole lot down, i'd recently moved roles. 

I had two offers, 1 off the record by the end of the day and lots of rope access offers by the end of the day. Made my decision then had two weeks at home enjoying life. 

Got a payout via a solicitors. Did lose a lot of overtime though, but the payout made up for that. I'm in a better place now. 

Had six months off when my first child was born then brought a house aand went back to work. Was amazing. 

First time

I was made redundant as a teacher. I was planning on leaving anyway and had supply work lined up. So I did what is was going to do and got a bonus pay out. Bonus 😀 

Second time

I was full time employed as a trainer and the company lost the contract. The redundancy pay took me until I was employed as a self employed trainer. I got a month's paid holiday before doing almost exactly the same training in the same places for overall the same money.

Both times were a bit worrying, but led to doing the same job within a month.

If redundancy is a strong possibility, I'd be getting the next roll lined up asap. Unless it affected severance.

I've been made redundant probably 4 or 5 times and I'm only mid 40's (working in it where staff are seemingly expendable until they realise they are not. Lol)

It's always very stressful because of the uncertainty but I've always ended up better off.
Mainly as payrises don't really exist in that industry unless you quit and get a new job at fair, current market rate anyway. That just seems to be the way it is.

My best man was made redundant a couple of months ago. Did niche data analysis/IT work for the same company for 35 years. 

Payout has cleared his mortgage and boosted his pension pot. Within a month a former colleague was tapping him up, and he is about to start working with him as a contractor with a view to going permanent if he does OK.

Redundant after 17yrs.  Decent payout.  Had the next role lined up before I accepted VR.  Spent the gardening leave building a patio and DIY.  New role is significantly better paid, I can walk to it, and the people are much nicer.  However I am finding it really tough to go from knowing pretty much everyone/all the history to knowing nothing.  Its week 5 so I'm sure it will get easier.

Good luck, despite the current uncomfortable patch, it is an overall positive experience.  Pretty stressful during the 'selection', worrying about losing the house/failing the family - but it turned out ok.  I celebrated each milestone with the wife - first application, first interview, first offer, first day - to try and manage the worry.

As it was the job came from me tapping up someone I used to work with and asking if they knew of any roles - got in before they were advertising on the open market.  So tap up your network.  Linkedin is a necessary evil (least in my line of work)  

I got laid off after 20 years. Left on the Friday with a year's pay and started the new job the following Monday.

Happened to me, mid 20's, been at company about 8 years. Walked out with nearly 6 months pay (bear in mind this was early 90's) and already had a better job lined up before my notice was out. Used it as a deposit on our first house.

Lots of Voluntary going on in my industry, and I'm yet to meet someone who hasn't found it a great opportunity, especially those late 50's.

First time was horrific. Made redundant due to the financial crash and because I'd only been there <18 months, I got basically sod all. Some people did OK out of it, a couple of folk wandering round the labs going "ooh, I can pay off my mortgage and spend a year on the golf course". Great, thanks for that. 🤬

It took me years to get out of that financial black hole. Although I did later manage to take the bank and the credit card company for thousands due to their "late fees" and "overdrawn fees".

The other two redundancies I've had were voluntary, on my own terms and both were the best thing I could have done.

I think if you do it on your terms and are prepared for it, it's fine. The first one, I was only mid-20's and it came out of the blue. All-staff announcement one day, some "interviews" the next while they lined up who to get rid of, then they literally walked me off site on the third day.

My wife had been at the same company for years and although she was well regarded in her role she always got overlooked for promotion in favour of the people who spoke a good game rather than delivered. She moved to a different department with all kind of promises but didn't really like it so had started to look for something else when out of nowhere they made her role redundant. She got to get the full redundancy package while having another job lined up to walk straight in to!

The next move didn't work out in the end but it gave her the confidence to move on again and find a role at a higher level that she really enjoys.

Happened to me 3 times. First time, 1990 I was 25,  23 months into a job I’d relocated for, just married, bought a house 6 months earlier with 100% mortgage. Took 9 months to find another job as there was a bit of a down-turn - it was pretty shit, but the next job was better paid and offered better career progression.

Next time, 1999, saw it coming as the MD cancelled a trip to the US where I’d set-up a big deal. I just walked in, said “give me the f*ing letter” and walked out. Didn’t have to repay them for the MBA they’d just sponsored. A few weeks later at a big business event a Swedish industrialist (I did a lot of work helping with opening up their market) tore a strip of the Group MD in the middle of a big messe in Germany - it was pretty funny apparently. Sold out to a US company shortly after - most folks laid-off.
Did some interim work in that sector and then moved elsewhere - next job doubled my salary. Managed to keep most redundancy - it bought Mrs DB a new car.

Spent the next 16 years with the same corporate company but as big projects came and went/ government funding cycles , was placed at risk a few times and had to move across businesses and projects. In 2016 I moved to another part of the business but almost immediately the director who hired me quit and one of my corporate ‘sponsors’ retired so I knew writing was on wall from then on. Spent most of 2 years racking up an impressive Candy Crush score and going to the gym . Finally got made redundant in 2018 at 53 and walked away with about 84 weeks salary, a DB pension and shares that I’ve hung onto.

I now work part-time in a shop in Tobermory selling hardware and whisky, in a community that doesn’t give a shit about what job you did/who you worked for.

Happened to me once.  they made an utter shambles of it, had me at home on garden leave on full pay for 7 months then had to pay be £7000 in a settlement agreement.  I was actually entitled to a months notice and £400.

They were trying to manage me out, realised they couldn't so then decided to try redundancy.  I still have fond memories of Me and MrsTJ tearing them to shreds in a meeting 🙂

I have seen similar a few times that they make a mess of the redundancy process and under threat of a tribunal for unfair dismissal hand over money to shut up and walk away

Happened to me just over two years ago, the settlement paid off the rest of my mortgage with some money left over. Now I am back in the same job at the same company!

It broke my heart and I thought my life was ended when I was laid off after 28 years with the only company I’d ever worked for. And honestly, it took me years to recover my self confidence fully. I don’t think I will ever forget it or really get over it. But on the bright side, the redundancy package was superb, and I walked straight into another job with a previous client. Now, even if I was offered my old job back, I would never take it. Things have worked out much better post redundancy than they did while the corporation was struggling and laying us off.

Edit: what im trying to say is please don’t underestimate the mental strain that redundancy can put on you. And your marriage, if you’re married.

Spent the gardening leave building a patio

You don't have to you know, it's just a phrase, you're allowed to do anything 

Got redundented once from a horrible job, given the letter and told to leave on the spot, asked if they could hold on while I made a call and phoned my best mate for advice. He had loads of good advice, but the one that stuck was this - he'd been in the unfortunate position of having to make a few people redundant in his time, but every single person he'd had to let go had ended up better off. Was 100% true for me, I hope it is for you. 🙂 

I worked for bank of scotland, had been doing a job I liked but it'd got progressively more toxic and then eventually post-merger that progressed onto outright managing-out because they wanted to close our office. So that meant the last year or so was just a constant battle of holding on for the redundancy payment. No fun at all.

So after that I took a wee holiday for a few months before starting to think about what to do next and had no clue. I ended up applying for a job at my old uni, fundamentally because I'd done 1 job interview in 10 years and their application process was really easy. Did the interview, got the job by accident, had literally no idea what it was. And it turned out to be bloody brilliant- student outreach plus event management and planning, amazing people, a cool place to work. Shit money but otherwise fantastic. Even got to travel around the country on expenses and ride a bunch of new places 🙂 

If I'd planned it, the finance side would have been better no doubt, I did that thing where you go in on a low salary and it's just really difficult to increase it internally, and then I just really didn't want to leave. But then I don't know if I could have planned it, it was a complete change and I didn't see it coming at all.

Redundancy was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Got made redundant from offshore oil i& gas in 2017, got a payout enough to cover the bills for about 15 months, used that time to go back to college to become a Gas Safe engineer. Absolutely loved it and would still be doing it except I ended up back in offshore gas by accident - got a call to go on a quick job to build/set up a laboratory, was supposed to be a month's work but that month was March 2020. With the entire planet on lock down I ended up stuck there until June 2020 and impressed enough that they've kept me busy since.

I did learn enough stuff when I was doing the Gas Safe stuff that I've since built a small house and I'm about to renovate our family home.

Best thing about my first redundancy, got a nice payout. Worst thing, signing on, getting paid too much, then paying it back. I found a new job, learnt new skills, was under more pressure, had less holiday, had less free time, got paid the same with no sign of that changing. Just been made redundant again, no payout this time because it was a few weeks before I reached two years employment. So not a particularly happy story lol haha. Maybe it will be though, time will tell, new opportunities and all that, if I can keep my head afloat.

I’d been waiting/holding out for it as the commute (after moving in with my then GF, now wife) was killing me. Company was slowly working through various offices, moving a lot of the jobs out to Eastern Europe, with plenty of folk getting decent pay outs so I put in a flexible working request to WFH in early 2019, before it was cool etc, they realised that if they put me on a WFH contract they wouldn’t be able to make me redundant when the inevitable move to Poland came so was offered a settlement agreement of just over a years salary. Bit their arm off, took 6 months off over summer and got a job with a customer, based much closer to home. That job didn’t work out, but am now in a brilliant job, that’s paid way more, with a brilliant company, so alls well that ends well.

Posted by: pondo

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redundented

The birth of a new verb* 👍

I’d been working for the same media company for twenty eight years, moved away from London and was travelling (and staying) in for seven days a month when the spectre of redundtation* was raised. No volunteering, but I could ‘show an interest’. I did. Six months later, after the usual consultation, I walked away with a nice wedge and took early retirement. Very happy as I was close to being unable, both mentally and physically, to keep doing it anyway. 

2003, new baby just born, the company I was with was in real trouble (monthly meetings to decide whether we the UK subsidiary could make payroll) and my team got made redundant via text message from HQ (yes it was a really shit company in some ways). We took the petty cash (£4k) and had one of the best nights out ever.

Next day (job losses were press released) I had two offers within the industry and have never looked back. It was a bizarre time though.

Ooh, that was a year that was. Dad died, my marriage broke up and I got made redundant! All in 2015, aged 50. Apart from me poor old man, life is now soooo much better!

Decent payout as I'd been with the company 14 years, on a very decent wage. Redundancy money went through my fingers like water though. Luckily my dad left me some money too, so I had some to invest. Almost moved into a job immediately on better money, but in a crap place to get to, so glad I didn't.

Tried a few jobs - dog walking was horrific, working on a friends farm was wonderful, but hard. Had to find something to pay the mortgage, so applying for IT jobs, which was a bit of a nightmare at 50 and my role was quite niche.

After 10 months, found a job 8 miles from home. £20K less than I had been on, but hey ho, I can use the remainder of my redundancy money to survive... yeah, the money side was quite tough, and after being quite institutionalised in my last place, adapting to a very different environment did take its toll on the old mental health. I think all the other stuff going on had mounted up too, and my previously high level of resilience took a knock. Counselling sorted it, thankfully.

Now I'm the lead in what I do, cycle to work on the days I'm in (thanks to covid, they're few and far between), money still not up where I had been , but as retirement looms, it's great to have a pretty much stress-free job to cruise to the finish line. Met a wonderful woman too (but, as they say, that's another story 🙂 )

Think I may have over-shared there! But it's all part of life's rich tapestry, so just roll with it, OP. And good luck to ya.

Going through it now. But at 60 I just need a couple of more years to sort some things financially. We have to interview for our roles next week. What a waste of time. We know that they know who they want to keep although there are a couple of roles, mine included that, are a bit uncertain.

Hopefully it will all work out.

I fought redundancy rounds off for about 7 years and eventually decided to take what was a decent package. I was in IT Project Mgt working at a good level but never really had passion for the job.

I took 6 months off managing a house extension then decided to retrain at aged 59 as a Personal Trainer. 

I now run Bootcamps with a great local community group that I have pulled together, work 1-2-1 with a few clients, work with a professional footballer and a local rugby team and have a lot of time for mountain biking and other fitness stuff.

Should have some it years ago, not sure why I didn’t but I also know many other people who find a better way after the trauma of the redundancy process. 

Good luck 🤞

Going through it now. But at 60 I just need a couple of more years to sort some things financially.

^^^ similarish and 60 early next year. Not strictly redundancy, and as posted over the last few weeks in the ‘how much money for early retirement’ thread, I was also hoping for a few more years of piling max contributions into my pension. However it is what it is, so I left with a reasonable settlement and a moderate pension pot. 

My current thinking is that I definitely don’t want to go back into a high pressure corporate senior role, and I’m looking at part time, meaningful stuff, ideally 6-10 days per month, which will bring in a bit of cash without too much tax and reduce pension and savings drawdown a bit. 

This is an interesting thread but all I can think about now is whether it should be "redundanted" or "redundanised".

Jobn't

i got done in 2017 out of the blue when the co I'd worked for 26 years for went into administration.

Upside was I got 8 weeks riding my bike in a brilliant summer. Downside was signing on (soul destroying) and getting the absolute bare minimum redundancy pay.

Further upside was I got a much better job, with a much better company, who I'm still with. 

And i got to take KPMG to tribunal and prove that they are lying scumbags and got additional ££'s from them.

I've had it happen a bunch of times. The first time, I found out that the company had not been paying my contribution or theirs into my pension. I went freelance (yay - journalism) and ended up having a lot of fun. Second time was about ten years later at a US company; got a contract job at a competitor. Third time I was working for the small UK office of a US company. UK MD didn't 'do' new biz and relied on doing local work for US clients. It looked both lazy and highly risky, so I took a job elsewhere, but was laid off the morning I was going to hand my notice in, as a big US client had canned their contract. Had a month off before starting at the new job I'd already accepted.
Latest one was December '23 - I was in the wrong country and the business was (and still is) on a downwards dive. I went freelance again, replaced my salary in '24 and look do be doing better this year. It's a huge relief not to have to compete with performative a**hats - I just trade on the quality of my work instead. I'm now doing stuff with or for seven of their higher-ranked competitors.

It's always led to two things for me: Uncertainty and self-doubt when you get binned - I regularly get walloped with impostor syndrome still - and secondly, much better things.

Every time I've been laid off I've signed on, but it's become increasingly grim every time. That has motivated me to get to a place where I can get the hell away from the job centre. I don't envy those who have no choice but to sign on - it's absolutely soul-destroying.

Worked for a company man and boy for 22 years. The whole environment changed towards the end and it was an awful place to work. Survived redundancy once, but the second time it came up a year later I told them to give me the money.

Unfortunately I had broken service - always worked for them, but had a short period self employed. Still, got enough to buy a truck and some tools - the PILON was actually more than the redundancy money. Ended up contracting back to the same company, but mostly on the tools, rather than management, before they closed the doors three months later.

I've had brief spells contracting as a manager and tht has made me realise that I'd never go back to doing that working for a company direct

Had some contacts in the industry and have had a pretty much continuous stream of work ever since for the past 15 years. The rest of my current situation is written in the retirement thread

Edit: what im trying to say is please don’t underestimate the mental strain that redundancy can put on you. And your marriage, if you’re married.

Respect for posting this. In amongst all the Snowheads style responses it's good to post that it's ok not to be ok.

Late 2015 I left a company after almost 14 years, I got 90 days notice as parts of the company have quite a union presence. Those 90 days I worked as normal thinking something might change (what a plonker) and I might get an opportunity within the company. 

Anyway got my money, probably about 11 months salary. Put some in the bank some in the pension and did not a lot for 6 months. I wanted to get away from what I had been doing as I was tired of the role. Did lots of cycling and little breaks with the OH. It was good, gave me time to reset the brain a bit and drop the stress of the work and the company environment. Looked at college and retraining in other fields.

A former colleague was at a conference and got talking to a couple of guys looking for somebody to take on the operations part of their business, everything was brilliant for 8 years and then they decided to retire and sell to a company who are bloody awful. If redundancy came around again I would be very willing to walk, 54 this year and have had enough of corporate stuff. 

Being in a bad place wether employed or unemployed is not great, its important to keep in touch with those you value from the workplaces you've been in and with those friends who always give you an ear or advice. Signing on was quite the experience, I was recommended to do it for NI reasons from a colleague who left at same time as me. I went in there with a CV and business card and was told to pretty much forget the notion of getting a job like I had and concentrate on just getting any job. They were pretty condescending and dismissive. Hated the whole experience.

I think any business closure can actually offer opportunities, some company will always step in to the void and fill the gap goods or services. These are quite often where the next step becomes available, networks of colleagues and customers can prove very fruitful.

I know very few people who have not absolutely thrived long term from redundancy. 

Short term though - a huge knock to the confidence, and financial uncertainty. It stresses your family and relationship, and your role as breadwinner / significant earner.

It's been a good kick up the @rse for me a couple of times. I've had to adapt, but frankly that's the best thing I needed (and still do).

I am now pretty cynical about the veneer of stability of a permanent job. Dead on certain, until all of a sudden it isn't. I prefer the world of consultancy, where I know it's down to me to deliver a good job, reliably, and build a pipeline.

some incredible payouts here!

As a public sectorist, we'd be getting 1 week salary per completed year of service. So it's only the especially long standing employees that would get 84 weeks....

Just happened to me after 35 years, 

I don’t really know what to say at the moment, it’s messed with my head that’s for sure. I am only just realising how much of my identity/ life/ friends was interwoven with my job.

if anyone’s interested I’ll let you know😂

^^ quite similar so far here, have a look over on the retirement thread, it has been very helpful to me.

Can't comment on the happy part yet but due to finish early October after 19 years at the same employer and 32 years in the industry.

Fortunately severance almost 2.5 years pay and seeing I'm almost 53 that gives me options.  There is a retraining allowance so seriously considering RHS horticulture course.

TBH, I'm knackered so will take a good few months off to try and decide what I'm going to do.

Former firm offered VR as I was going through the process of getting another job. They didn't really mean to make me redundant but forgot to exclude my role from the offer. Ha ha. 20k and a new job, ta very much. Unfortunately 15k of it went on stamp duty when moving house. Bah!

I left a company 30 years ago that was just about to be taken over. Roll forward to now and just about to receive their pension. Completely unknown to me the taking over company bumped up the old pension rights to c double what i was expecting. I just emailed the new company to check it was correct, it is.

I was made redundant in July 2020 from a company that I had worked at for 24 years and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. 

I hadn't realised just how sick the job and management structure was making me but as soon as it was all completed (3 days into a 2 week holiday in the Highlands) I suddenly felt massively lighter and unburdened.

This was followed by 15 months out of work, where I took the time to do some things for myself, like some short college courses (tiling, plastering and plumbing) and generally getting my head straight.

I decided to take a less stressful role and have been working in a student support role at a local university since November 2021 and thoroughly enjoy it. I'm on about 2/3rds of my previous wage but feel so much better for it. About 12 months ago Mrs.P said out of the blue that she didn't think I'd still be here if I'd stopped in my previous job, so everything has been an improvement since.

I have been made redundant once, possibly twice in my 'career'. The first time wasn't so much redundancy as the company I liked, joined from university, bought a flat on basis of work, settled along road from - lasted 5 weeks and went bust. Managed to get statutory redundancy and not much else. As did @donald of this parish. I found somewhere else safe for a year, then another start-up (that I'd applied to before) sounded me out. Was there for next 19 years, it was getting a bit sh!t and I was at point of chucking it all in, when something didn't feel 'right' and I hung on. Month's pay per year (woo); capped at 12 months/years (boo). Still - saved family relationship I think, was able to move north to be nearer my aging parents, and have a better life. No real regrets.

Made redundant at about 12 years in, in 18 months off worked about 5 weeks doing the on site portion of my role (much of which was for the parent company) and spent the rest of the time doing trail work, 'socialising ' , dog walking, riding and a bit of worrying. Figured if I was going to carry on I'd have to up my game, fortunately I was approached by the new CEO of the old firm to come back and I think I wrangled a 20% pay rise and continuity of service.