Voluntary redundancy selection

[LouBarlow]

It doesn’t make sense to me using seniority as a way to decide, if this really is a cost cutting tactic. You want the people with more years remaining service, out of the business, not those with just a couple of years. A 50 year old, who has done 15 years will cost you more in wages going forward than a guy a few years off retiring.

[Surreypostie]

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!

I'm assuming that RM have torn up all agreements with the CWU. For example they have reduced the amount of redundancy from 24 months to 9. Royal Mail also opened VR up to everyone eligible rather than just look at the numbers of job losses in each office and go through a relatively small pool of senior posties offering them VR. Some offices after all won't have any VR due to the amount of vacancies in them.

Seniority has always been dodgy in terms of is it age discrimination? Age discrimination after all works both ways, as I've had this discussion with an HR expert. Because seniority has been agreed with the Union it's never been challenged. Understand this is Royal Mail no longer working with the Union.

Also It will cost Royal Mail far more to do this on a seniority basis and they will have a set budget for redundancy. This is a cost saving exercise and spending huge amounts of money kind of defeats the purpose.

I'm trying to look at this from a legal / financial perspective rather than "how it's always been done". I think those days are over just like a lot of things with the job now.

Team. ST here, the budget I can reveal is zero. To put an end to all the speculation, we are going to sack everybody that has done under two years, cost to the business will be zero meaning I can pocket loads more wonga from you mugs doing all the work.

[mags999]

Vrs in the past have always been on seniority not that there has been that many do people on here think that is unfair. compulsory is a different matter never happened in Royal mail in my time. all I would say is wait till you have done 30 odd years and then you will realise what is a fair way to do vrs stop giving the company encouragement to change the criteria

[arsenalbob]

I think they should use the premier league table as a guideline. Fans of the top team go first and work down from there. Just a suggestion

[postieblueshirt]

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!

I'm assuming that RM have torn up all agreements with the CWU. For example they have reduced the amount of redundancy from 24 months to 9. Royal Mail also opened VR up to everyone eligible rather than just look at the numbers of job losses in each office and go through a relatively small pool of senior posties offering them VR. Some offices after all won't have any VR due to the amount of vacancies in them.

Seniority has always been dodgy in terms of is it age discrimination? Age discrimination after all works both ways, as I've had this discussion with an HR expert. Because seniority has been agreed with the Union it's never been challenged. Understand this is Royal Mail no longer working with the Union.

Also It will cost Royal Mail far more to do this on a seniority basis and they will have a set budget for redundancy. This is a cost saving exercise and spending huge amounts of money kind of defeats the purpose.

I'm trying to look at this from a legal / financial perspective rather than "how it's always been done". I think those days are over just like a lot of things with the job now.

Team. ST here, the budget I can reveal is zero. To put an end to all the speculation, we are going to sack everybody that has done under two years, cost to the business will be zero meaning I can pocket loads more wonga from you mugs doing all the work.

hold on ST.you have given us the new contracts that include sunday working and be moved to any office 6 days over 7 why would you want rid of us...were not standing in the way of your parcel vision.

[Cucumber]

So people with 5-10-15 years service who want out should wait 30 years to see if they feel VR selection would be fair at that point? Hate to break it to you but there is a stampede for VR at all seniority levels and RM don't need any help with ideas of who to offer it to. Shooting fish in a barrel springs to mind.

[Surreypostie]

So people with 5-10-15 years service who want out should wait 30 years to see if they feel VR selection would be fair at that point? Hate to break it to you but there is a stampede for VR at all seniority levels and RM don't need any help with ideas of who to offer it to. Shooting fish in a barrel springs to mind.

If you have only done 5 or so years your payout wouldn't be that much, unless you already have a job to go to that is an enormous risk as there is no guarantee you would find another job before the money runs out. Even the maximum amount which someone with years of service is offered is not enough to live on for long.

[Cucumber]

So people with 5-10-15 years service who want out should wait 30 years to see if they feel VR selection would be fair at that point? Hate to break it to you but there is a stampede for VR at all seniority levels and RM don't need any help with ideas of who to offer it to. Shooting fish in a barrel springs to mind.

If you have only done 5 or so years your payout wouldn't be that much, unless you already have a job to go to that is an enormous risk as there is no guarantee you would find another job before the money runs out. Even the maximum amount which someone with years of service is offered is not enough to live on for long.

That is for the individual themselves to decide, hence the voluntary aspect.

[j1mmyc]

People who think they can take the money and leave for another job are in for a shock, I hate to break it to people but there is not alot of jobs out there and the jobs out there are massively applied for, when it comes down to signing on the dotted line some people are gonna have 2nd thoughts, it's only 9 months pay you'll be lucky to make that last 6 months at the moment

[antcpfc]

I wouldn’t want to kick out a load of comparatively young posties and be left with a load of 50 year olds and older like myself.
They are more likely to need the job long term so will be more open to new working ways.whereas some of us will be less likely to give a s**t.

[Surreypostie]

So people with 5-10-15 years service who want out should wait 30 years to see if they feel VR selection would be fair at that point? Hate to break it to you but there is a stampede for VR at all seniority levels and RM don't need any help with ideas of who to offer it to. Shooting fish in a barrel springs to mind.

If you have only done 5 or so years your payout wouldn't be that much, unless you already have a job to go to that is an enormous risk as there is no guarantee you would find another job before the money runs out. Even the maximum amount which someone with years of service is offered is not enough to live on for long.

That is for the individual themselves to decide, hence the voluntary aspect.

Indeed, I have applied and crossing my fingers, doubt I will get it but I am out of here anyway, been offered another job abd accepted it, if I get offered this I will sit tight for the payout, A sinking ship and I'm going regardless.

[Halfhappy]

So people with 5-10-15 years service who want out should wait 30 years to see if they feel VR selection would be fair at that point? Hate to break it to you but there is a stampede for VR at all seniority levels and RM don't need any help with ideas of who to offer it to. Shooting fish in a barrel springs to mind.

If you have only done 5 or so years your payout wouldn't be that much, unless you already have a job to go to that is an enormous risk as there is no guarantee you would find another job before the money runs out. Even the maximum amount which someone with years of service is offered is not enough to live on for long.

That is for the individual themselves to decide, hence the voluntary aspect.

Indeed, I have applied and crossing my fingers, doubt I will get it but I am out of here anyway, been offered another job abd accepted it, if I get offered this I will sit tight for the payout, A sinking ship and I'm going regardless.

Why do you doubt you'll get it?

[Surreypostie]

So people with 5-10-15 years service who want out should wait 30 years to see if they feel VR selection would be fair at that point? Hate to break it to you but there is a stampede for VR at all seniority levels and RM don't need any help with ideas of who to offer it to. Shooting fish in a barrel springs to mind.

If you have only done 5 or so years your payout wouldn't be that much, unless you already have a job to go to that is an enormous risk as there is no guarantee you would find another job before the money runs out. Even the maximum amount which someone with years of service is offered is not enough to live on for long.

That is for the individual themselves to decide, hence the voluntary aspect.

Indeed, I have applied and crossing my fingers, doubt I will get it but I am out of here anyway, been offered another job abd accepted it, if I get offered this I will sit tight for the payout, A sinking ship and I'm going regardless.

Why do you doubt you'll get it?

Rumours, we have too many vacancies according to my COM so he doubts anybody will get it, by that logic, nobody will get it as the place is running with masses of vacancies.

[Halfhappy]

So people with 5-10-15 years service who want out should wait 30 years to see if they feel VR selection would be fair at that point? Hate to break it to you but there is a stampede for VR at all seniority levels and RM don't need any help with ideas of who to offer it to. Shooting fish in a barrel springs to mind.

If you have only done 5 or so years your payout wouldn't be that much, unless you already have a job to go to that is an enormous risk as there is no guarantee you would find another job before the money runs out. Even the maximum amount which someone with years of service is offered is not enough to live on for long.

That is for the individual themselves to decide, hence the voluntary aspect.

Indeed, I have applied and crossing my fingers, doubt I will get it but I am out of here anyway, been offered another job abd accepted it, if I get offered this I will sit tight for the payout, A sinking ship and I'm going regardless.

Why do you doubt you'll get it?

Rumours, we have too many vacancies according to my COM so he doubts anybody will get it, by that logic, nobody will get it as the place is running with masses of vacancies.

I've never really thought it was about reducing staff numbers, it's just about reducing the wages bill.

[Surreypostie]

So people with 5-10-15 years service who want out should wait 30 years to see if they feel VR selection would be fair at that point? Hate to break it to you but there is a stampede for VR at all seniority levels and RM don't need any help with ideas of who to offer it to. Shooting fish in a barrel springs to mind.

If you have only done 5 or so years your payout wouldn't be that much, unless you already have a job to go to that is an enormous risk as there is no guarantee you would find another job before the money runs out. Even the maximum amount which someone with years of service is offered is not enough to live on for long.

That is for the individual themselves to decide, hence the voluntary aspect.

Indeed, I have applied and crossing my fingers, doubt I will get it but I am out of here anyway, been offered another job abd accepted it, if I get offered this I will sit tight for the payout, A sinking ship and I'm going regardless.

Why do you doubt you'll get it?

Rumours, we have too many vacancies according to my COM so he doubts anybody will get it, by that logic, nobody will get it as the place is running with masses of vacancies.

I've never really thought it was about reducing staff numbers, it's just about reducing the wages bill.

Exactly, if it was all about headcount they could get rid of everybody who has done less than 2 years for free.