In April our DOM was after two jobs from our professional driving duties as part of a savings package he was working on, we were asked to come up with ideas as to how best to achieve what he wanted while making our duties more robust. In the end after a lot of messing about the word EVR came out and the offer was that if we put the changes in place he would get two people an EVR agreement so they could leave, all were asked and names out forward including my own as one of the duties going was mine and having done 39 years I thought it would be worth a look. Unfortunately our unit rep let things slip the changes went ahead long before any EVR offers had surfaced and have been running since, leaving me as a floating cover all.
In the time since that we (all of us who expressed an interest) have been called in on numerous occasions to be "kept in the loop" as the manager still insisted they would go ahead, at one point he actually gave me some figures from a calculator on his laptop which he said he could not print but would be willing to write down for me to consider, this he did on some scrap, this offered me 3 options :- a high pension figure and a low lump sum. a mid pension figure and a larger lump sum and finally a lower pension and a large (max) lump sum all of which would be slightly enhanced and in addition to the sum I was being offered to leave which constituted 6 months pay (I am 56 ). This interested me, but he seemed to want me to commit based on those figures alone which I said I was not prepared to do and would wait until an official offer came through. This has bumped along since, we even got told by him that he had been informed by HR that his requests for EVR were illegal, that without any explanation to us as to why? Anyway we had given up all hope and were at the point of stringing our rep and suggesting he raise the issue of returning to the previous state as the DOM had not come through on his side of the deal.
Out of the blue this week we were all told (all of us waiting) that offers would be coming in the next few days, first to receive his was a night man who is in his last 15 months before he is 65 and he states his offer was exactly what he was shown 2 years pay. A done deal as far as he was concerned (a no brainer to be fair) mine arrived yesterday, I read it once then again and was baffled the only option offered was a sum to go (6 months pay) and the higher pension and small lump sum, none of the other options were mentioned, I wrote it off in my head immediately and put it to one side. Later on I read it again and it was only then it hit me the offer was was worded for Voluntary Redundancy and not Voluntary Retirement now I have not seen any of these offers before but would assume if it was Early Voluntary Retirement it would be worded as such and would not include the word REDUNDANCY.
I am going to approach the DOM tomorrow Monday with the rep present, just to put my point over but would be grateful if anyone can shed a little light on this and confirm that what I was offered initially was in line with an EVR offer and what I have before me at home is what constitutes a VR offer or am I loosing it or have I missed something in the passing months since we first registered our interest ......
I have also to have in mind that as the business moves forward and knowing my office and how things might pan out there it's likely this will come around again at a time better suited to me both financially and for piece of mind in my retirement.