Voluntary Redunancy … who`s taken it and regretted it ?

Things arent goin too well where i work at the moment , we ve been on short time now for over a year (3 day week), and today we received a letter saying things are gettin worse and they are looking at more redundancies,
Thing is ive been there almost 12 years now,hate my job and im fed up with travelling 200 miles a week just to get to work …
Money ok as long as its a full week …
So i`m thinking of putting in for VR ..

Question is whos taken VR and regretted it ?? .. or was it the best thing youve done ?
I know things are bad in the real world,… but ive managed to clear all my debt in the last year so all i have is a small mortgage …
Decisions … Decisions ..???

No Debt and Small Mortgage ?? job you hate ?

No brainer for me mate. See how much they will offer you.

Redundancies? Love 'em. Had three so far since moving to this country – if there's a decent payout and you've not too indebted it's the chance for a decent holiday and a new start.
Not too sure how I'd feel if it's a small town, one or two major employers and I couldn't/wouldn't move when it came time to go back to work, mind.

lowey – Member
No Debt and Small Mortgage ?? job you hate ?

No brainer for me mate. See how much they will offer you.

Yeah i`ll wait and see what they offer first , but if its the same as previous years it will be govemnet mininum , which is s**t
Better than nothing though … some days i just feel like handing my notice it and **** the lot of them …
If it wasnt for the wife and kids to support ,id have left yesr ago

Having been made redundant in April for the first time it's taken me 6 months to find work again so be aware it's tough out there to find work.

Best thing I ever did.

Big payoff, set up my own business, which has been very successful.

A big group of us left and nobody I'm aware of has regretted it. A few who stayed have regretted that though.

If your company is at all generous then you should be looking at a pretty packet with 12 years under your belt.

I've only ever regretted *not* taking VR when it's been offered. I've been made redundant further on down the line from an apparently profitable company that went under, I got my statutory redundancy pittance and then spent the next two years trying to claw back some of the many thousands (I gave up after getting a couple of grand but they still owe me 5k) I was owed from the shyster liquidators while the ex-directors all went on to start up new companies almost immediately most of whom went on to be quite succesful, some of whom actually did so with rebranded products the old company had made.

But I'm not bitter. It's amazing how good a few carefully made phone calls to trading standards and companies house can make you feel.

chakaping – Member
Best thing I ever did

If your company is at all generous then you should be looking at a pretty packet with 12 years under your belt.

You dont know our place , they finished quite a few last year and some had been there 20 plus years and only got 10K – 12K !

Id be lucky if i got out with 8-10K

i was made redundant in February, was very lucky with the payout (1 month per year worked) after being there 8 yrs, plus 3 months notice and 2 month gardening leave. Best thing that's ever happened to me, rode full time for the first 5 months of the year 🙂

tricky bit was finding a job, took a lot of work but re-entered the world of tax paying at the beginning of July. New job is far more rewarding and the guys still left at my original employer are bracing themselves for more cuts and blatently not enjoying life. Of the guys who left at the same time as me I can't think of anyone who's looking back

Best thing I ever did.

Big payoff, set up my own business, which has been very successful.

A big group of us left and nobody I'm aware of has regretted it. A few who stayed have regretted that though.

If your company is at all generous then you should be looking at a pretty packet with 12 years under your belt.

Exactly the same here. Never looked back since leaving. Never even been back to the office. Have never for one second missed it. Just like OP had no debts and a small mortgage. There's worse things than being unemployed!

£ 10 – £ 12k for 20 years is above statutory redundancy. I've just chucked in a salary of £60k with 25 years at age 50 into the calulator and it kicked out £ 9300 max. (http://www.direct.gov.uk/redundancy.dsb).

If it was me and the only money of offer was statutory I'd force them to make me redundant, you'll get the same monbey anyway. Most firms up the offer for voluntary to encourage people to take it so it's a win / win.

If the jobs that bad start looking anyway, worst case you walk into another job with more money and can tell your current employers to stick it, best case as above plus a redundancy cheque. Personally I wouldn't walkk unless there was a pretty big lump sum and I was pretty sure I could walk into another job.

I'd volunteer this afternoon if I was confident of finding something else. Would be worth £6k minimum to me.

We're fast going down, even the MD has today admitted there's no future for us in the UK unless we find "niche markets".

I've just taken it, officially tomorrow is my last day but been paid for last two weeks at home.

I've wanted out for a while and what they offered i couldn't refuse, i'm 40 and am semi retiring, going to care for my disabled wife, and might get a part time job too.

I feel so relieved, don't regret for a second, i was in engineering which is now dead in this country even though we was a niche company.

Good Luck in whatever you choose to do.

I took volountary redundancy 17yrs ago, I had been with the company 16yrs and had begun to hate my job.
I had just moved in to my brand new detached house, I had a young daughter and my wife only worked part time.
It took less time to find the job I am now in than what I had to wait prior to signing on, (I never actually signed on although I had registered myself as unemployed), I am still in the same company and have and have never looked back.