Redundancy - URGENT advice needed

[Chr1sch]

Morning all,

I am more of a lurker than an avid poster, but never mind...

The girlfriend and i have had a pretty disasterous bit of news today and we could do with some advice from those in the know......

My other half is a trainee chartered surveyor, and is currently a valuation surveyor whilst working towards her apc......

She is in the commercial sector and that has fallen apart, and as she joined around 14 months ago, she is first inline for the boot...........

Does an employee of 14 months have any rights in terms of payment etc? This completely screws her apc trainign up and there arent any jobs going at the moment.

If anything this is a plea of desperation to see if there is anything i can do to help her....

Thanks in advance

Chris

P.S if you know of any trainee surveyor positions in the midlands let me know!!

[Brown and Boris]

I can't help with legal advice except I understand it is 2 years before you get anything.


This may sound odd, but if the finish line isn't too far away and she has a good prospect of a decent job on qualification would the company accept her on an intern basis (ie unwaged ) if you can afford that? I recall a few years ago when getting legal articles were tough to get, that a company I did some work with had people doing that: working for nothing other than their professional fees and expenses paid just to get qualfied. Not morally very nice but better than throwing the deree and last year and a half to the wall?

[Davel]

I believe that she will not be entitled to anything other than maybe her notice period etc.

I understand that two years is also the normal minimum service, before she is entitled to anything but look on the ACAS website as they have quidelines etc on there.

[Chr1sch]

Hmmm interesting idea, i will suggest this to her, although her spending habits may dictate otherwise......

Thanks!

chris

[M400 NBL]

Has she been old that her job is at risk? I know that it's highly unlikely, given that your g/f has worked there less than 2 years, but if she has more skills than her colleagues, she may be safe.

Her employers may also consider sickness and disciplinarys if they are using a points system. She needs to find out the criteria....this is assuming that it's even legal for an employer to keep someone with less than 2 years service over someone with more.

Good luck.

[Dick Dastardly]

So long as she hasn't been told there are redundancies coming then she qualifies for redundancy protection. A friend of mine has just done this and for less than £20 a month will receive £700 a month for a year if she loses her job. Might be worth it if the industry is slow and getting another job may take a while.

[pgilc1]

Dick Dastardly said:

So long as she hasn't been told there are redundancies coming then she qualifies for redundancy protection. A friend of mine has just done this and for less than £20 a month will receive £700 a month for a year if she loses her job. Might be worth it if the industry is slow and getting another job may take a while.

I posted this previously, but i still laugh when i think about it. Whenever Abbey were taken over by santander they made no qualms about telling us they wanted to centralise all their IT. So i took out unemployment insurance with Abbey themselves, got a staff discount. Effectively meaning Abbey had to pay out insurance of £1500 a month if they made me redundant - which they did

For anyone who has ANY doubt about their job, redundancy insurance is the way to go. Not only do you get the insurance, but you'll get £80 a week jobseekers allowance (basically the trigger for the insurance payment) on top of the payment until you get your next job.

Usually 90 days 'lead time' as it were, in terms of cover kicking in.

Edited by pgilc1 on Friday 3rd October 11:54

Edited by pgilc1 on Friday 3rd October 11:54

[Chrisgr31]

Has she been told she is to go? She might be the last one in, but she will be substantially cheaper to employ than the qualified surveyors and therefore may not be the first out the door!