Voluntary redundancy selection

[parforthewalk]

The issue of using seniority as the sole criterion nowadays is that it leaves the door wide open for action under the equality act. It's much safer in that sense to use a skills/experience/attendance//cost based system (ie who will be of most 'value' going forwards). While experience does equate to seniority, experience is generally seen as a 'positive' attribute and so more senior staff are more likely to be retained.

I know a lot of you will be upset by that, and I'm not ecstatic about it myself. But it is what it is. 'Suitability' is what a tribunal would judge things on. And you can see RM's criteria and thinking in their criteria for planned compulsory redundancy.

Granted voluntary redundancy modifies things a bit (you must select from only the pool wishing to leave), but the need for 'fairness' remains. Seniority won't hack it at tribunal.

We had VR in my old office 3x staff got the offer & it was on Seniority

[Acca Dacca]

Granted voluntary redundancy modifies things a bit (you must select from only the pool wishing to leave), but the need for 'fairness' remains. Seniority won't hack it at tribunal.

Who would be taking them to tribunal after taking voluntary redundancy? It’s voluntary.

[Boltonian-White]

Royal Mails proposed criteria for compulsory redundancies

Yep, that's based on skills, conduct and attendance. All of that is recommended selection criteria by ACAS. It's seen as fair in the eyes of the law if not by employees.

[Boltonian-White]

Ok let's get this out of the way as there seems to be confusion between EVR and VR. If you knew the difference already then I apologize.

EVR is early voluntary retirement. Done on seniority in the past which is agreed by the union. We know these senior full timers were replaced by part timers. It was negotiated by RM and the CWU. That's what I've seen in the past, as in delivery there's been less indoor work (shifted to more outdoor) due to automation over the years so hours have been taken out of an office and EVR was seen as the fair way to do it. You probably don't know this if you joined RM after the last round of EVR's.

The key word here is redundancy. Whether it's voluntary or compulsory the process for selection is the same and the outcome is the same which is redundancy.

VR is what comes before compulsory redundancies if there are more redundancies.

VR is the same process as CR but saves time ( creates a pool of people for redundancy), saves money ( they will have a budget for redundancies) and will avoid legal (mostly discrimination ) cases at the end of the day. IF RM try and do this on seniority then watch the appeals and legal cases cripple them.

VR has been offered to everyone who is eligible in Royal Mail. This time not sanctioned by the CWU as they don't want any redundancies ( VR or CR) because they know contracted posties will be replaced with agency or contracts on lesser terms and conditions creating a 3 tier workforce. Also there will be far less CWU members in the business and a lot of division / resentment amongst people who are meant to work together ( like there isn't enough already! ) Divide and conquer I think the term is.

VR creates a pool of people that RM can score based on criteria which includes skills for example driving ( which is a skill for those on about discrimination. I know of posties who can drive but refuse to drive for RM). Other examples of selection criteria in the link below. At the end of this process each employee will have a score and this score will be used to offer Voluntary redundancy. You don't have to take it.

The same process will be used for compulsory later on down the line (if that happens). This will take longer as each employee will have to be scored. Read this as it explains far more than I can https://www.acas.org.uk/manage-staff-re ... redundancy

https://www.davidsonmorris.com/voluntary-redundancy/

Pretty much every office in the country is understaffed since before covid so why are RM offering VR? Because revisions are on the way. How bad will this be? your guess is as good as mine because some walks at the moment are ridiculously heavy already and some.... well if you've been in RM long enough as a reserve then you know the score on that one. I know if the USO is decreased from 6 days to 5 then you're looking at big numbers on compulsory redundancy.

It's all part of a disgusting, underhand strategy that Royal Mail senior management have which in the end is all about the money. Damn the people who make you that money. It's taking advantage. It's pure evil. And as the Manic's sang "If you tolerate this your children will be next".

[DGH]

Granted voluntary redundancy modifies things a bit (you must select from only the pool wishing to leave), but the need for 'fairness' remains. Seniority won't hack it at tribunal.

Who would be taking them to tribunal after taking voluntary redundancy? It’s voluntary.

Nobody.

However people who applied for VR and didn't get it might well do if the criterion was seniority alone

[redlen]

Granted voluntary redundancy modifies things a bit (you must select from only the pool wishing to leave), but the need for 'fairness' remains. Seniority won't hack it at tribunal.

Who would be taking them to tribunal after taking voluntary redundancy? It’s voluntary.

Nobody.

However people who applied for VR and didn't get it might well do if the criterion was seniority alone

At Last

A poster who has identified Provision Criterion or Practice

Respect

[Schiff]

Granted voluntary redundancy modifies things a bit (you must select from only the pool wishing to leave), but the need for 'fairness' remains. Seniority won't hack it at tribunal.

Who would be taking them to tribunal after taking voluntary redundancy? It’s voluntary.

Nobody.

However people who applied for VR and didn't get it might well do if the criterion was seniority alone

I'm not sure that a tribunal would be interested in a claim for not losing your job.

[RobertT]

Ok let's get this out of the way as there seems to be confusion between EVR and VR. If you knew the difference already then I apologize.

EVR is early voluntary retirement. Done on seniority in the past which is agreed by the union. We know these senior full timers were replaced by part timers. It was negotiated by RM and the CWU. That's what I've seen in the past, as in delivery there's been less indoor work (shifted to more outdoor) due to automation over the years so hours have been taken out of an office and EVR was seen as the fair way to do it. You probably don't know this if you joined RM after the last round of EVR's.

The key word here is redundancy. Whether it's voluntary or compulsory the process for selection is the same and the outcome is the same which is redundancy.

VR is what comes before compulsory redundancies if there are more redundancies.

VR is the same process as CR but saves time ( creates a pool of people for redundancy), saves money ( they will have a budget for redundancies) and will avoid legal (mostly discrimination ) cases at the end of the day. IF RM try and do this on seniority then watch the appeals and legal cases cripple them.

VR has been offered to everyone who is eligible in Royal Mail. This time not sanctioned by the CWU as they don't want any redundancies ( VR or CR) because they know contracted posties will be replaced with agency or contracts on lesser terms and conditions creating a 3 tier workforce. Also there will be far less CWU members in the business and a lot of division / resentment amongst people who are meant to work together ( like there isn't enough already! ) Divide and conquer I think the term is.

VR creates a pool of people that RM can score based on criteria which includes skills for example driving ( which is a skill for those on about discrimination. I know of posties who can drive but refuse to drive for RM). Other examples of selection criteria in the link below. At the end of this process each employee will have a score and this score will be used to offer Voluntary redundancy. You don't have to take it.

The same process will be used for compulsory later on down the line (if that happens). This will take longer as each employee will have to be scored. Read this as it explains far more than I can https://www.acas.org.uk/manage-staff-re ... redundancy

https://www.davidsonmorris.com/voluntary-redundancy/

Pretty much every office in the country is understaffed since before covid so why are RM offering VR? Because revisions are on the way. How bad will this be? your guess is as good as mine because some walks at the moment are ridiculously heavy already and some.... well if you've been in RM long enough as a reserve then you know the score on that one. I know if the USO is decreased from 6 days to 5 then you're looking at big numbers on compulsory redundancy.

It's all part of a disgusting, underhand strategy that Royal Mail senior management have which in the end is all about the money. Damn the people who make you that money. It's taking advantage. It's pure evil. And as the Manic's sang "If you tolerate this your children will be next".

I've been trying to tell people the difference between EVR and VR on this site for years!

With EVR it was possible to get an enhanced pension of 37.5% of what you would have got, had you stayed with the company until age 65.
As far as I'm aware, EVR stopped in 2018 at the same time as RMPP members stopped accruing any more pension. It was part of the 4 Pillars agreement.

Up until now, both EVR(only for the over 55's anyway) and VR has been done on seniority, as that's been the agreement with the CWU.
The proposed program of redundancies, whether voluntary or compulsory, isn't agreed by the CWU. Therefore neither is seniority as the method of determining potential candidates.

Although personally I think it's still the fairest way for those voluntarily choosing to give up their job.

[redlen]

We are not talking about losing your job but indirect discrimination and treating one employee less favourably than another. That is why annual leave selection is no longer done on seniority.

[RobertT]

We are not talking about losing your job but indirect discrimination and treating one employee less favourably than another. That is why annual leave selection is no longer done on seniority.

You can argue the rules involving redundancy criteria aren't fair to everyone!

Is it fair that those with a slightly worse sick record should be made redundant ahead of someone else?

[Schiff]

We are not talking about losing your job but indirect discrimination and treating one employee less favourably than another. That is why annual leave selection is no longer done on seniority.

In that case I'll leave it to you to find an employment tribunal case where an employee won a case by not being selected for voluntary redundancy. I won't hold my breath waiting for you to find one.

[Boltonian-White]

We are not talking about losing your job but indirect discrimination and treating one employee less favourably than another. That is why annual leave selection is no longer done on seniority.

In that case I'll leave it to you to find an employment tribunal case where an employee won a case by not being selected for voluntary redundancy. I won't hold my breath waiting for you to find one.

You can simply appeal against not getting VR. Why even look at an employment tribunal?

If you have good grounds for an appeal that is. If not then why even risk the cost of going to court?

[Boltonian-White]

First post and likely my last on here. Bit sick of seeing people guessing how the VR will work on numerous threads.

Starts a thread saying he's sick of others guessing how VR will work, then goes on to guess himself....

then the whole thread leads to more guesswork from everyone else. lol.


We'll just have to wait and see. Anyone been offered it yet?

Guessing what exactly? By posting what ACAS recommend as well as law firms and HR firms? There's a legal process to redundancy and a lot of people don't understand this, yourself included by the looks of things.

[RobertT]

Guessing what exactly? By posting what ACAS recommend as well as law firms and HR firms? There's a legal process to redundancy and a lot of people don't understand this, yourself included by the looks of things.

The main gist of the ACAS link you provided, is that the criteria for redundancy should be fair. It doesn't say that seniority cannot be used, in fact is explicitly states:

When setting up a selection pool, you should check and follow any:

agreements you may have with a recognised trade union
existing redundancy policy
If there is no existing policy or agreement, you should consider consulting any recognised trade union on how the pool should be set up.

Up to now, seniority has always been the main factor in deciding who gets VR. I appreciate that may not be the case going forward, as I mentioned in my previous post. But previous VR exercises do set a precedent!

For me, there needs to be a clear difference between the criteria for compulsory and voluntary.

With compulsory, ultimately it's up to the company who goes. That could be because a particular job disappears – potentially CSP staff for example. Or it could be based on sick or disciplinary records, etc.

With voluntary, people are choosing to give up their job in return for a sum of money. Therefore the question I ask, is should negative elements of their RM employment be used as criteria.
Personally I don't think so!

[parforthewalk]

Great info thanks apologies it was EVR in my old office before 2018. Hence it was done on Seniority.