Re-org and constructive dismissal?

[V8mate]

Last week a friend of mine was informed that his directorate was having a major re-org. Most people were given notices that their positions no longer existed but that various new positions would be made available for them to apply for.

All very normal.

This week there were further staff briefings and the new organisational charts were shared. In his case, the job that hand another person both do will onyl have one role in the new organisation, so they both have to apply for it.

Still fine.

The company told everyone that nothing is being rushed through and that the whole transition is scheduled to be completed by financial year end (31 March) an that formal consultation was beginning now.

All good.

Today, his boss comes back from a meeting with the director and with a long face says that the director is a bit worried about him (my friend). He was a bit perplexed as to why a director pushing 300-400 people through a major change would be specifically worried about him alone, so asked why. His manager said that my friend's colleague would be getting the single role, but not to be downhearted as "there are other opportunities".

Is that constructive dismissal? Publishing a change process but the declaring from the outset that you're going to be 'unsuccessful' must surely offer my friend some recourse.

What should he be writing to the HR manager? (and director?)
I said that whatever he writes he should always leave a 'way out' for his employer, i.e. a way for them to repair the damage so he doesn't have to lose his job and got through the mess of legal action (if it's applicable). As far as I know he is well regarded and has no history as a ‘boat rocker’.

So how should he approach this?

[edc]

This sounds more like a management team who have designed an ok process and actually thought about possible outcomes with one rogue manager who has shared 1 bit of information without the rest of the contextual info. I have been doing restructures for a few years and as you'd expect there are lots of permutations and some individual stakeholders might even state a preferred outcome. That doesn't mean it will be delivered though.

[Crafty_]

I would think that he needs to ask HR for the comments to be clarified. It may be worth having a chat with ACAS once he has that reply and taking their advice. I wouldn't be making waves just yet.

I'm fairly sure that this is a slightly different situation to simply applying for a job in normal situations in that they still have obligations to their employees.
If he applies for this new role and does lose out to the other guy he could ask for a written statement as to why he didn't get the job. Again, refer to ACAS and take it from there.

[V8mate]

edc said:

This sounds more like a management team who have designed an ok process and actually thought about possible outcomes with one rogue manager who has shared 1 bit of information without the rest of the contextual info. I have been doing restructures for a few years and as you'd expect there are lots of permutations and some individual stakeholders might even state a preferred outcome. That doesn't mean it will be delivered though.

I don't disagree at all, and he approached me knowing that, like you, delivering business change is part of what I do for a living.

I'm just trying to spin my own mind into the 'devil's advocate' role and seeing what steps he can take based on receiving this rather invidious message.

For example, in the course of normal business, if a manager informally approached a member of staff and said 'you should probably start looking for another job because I don't really want you in my team', then he'd have a CD claim, right?

[Bonefish Blues]

V8mate said:

edc said:

This sounds more like a management team who have designed an ok process and actually thought about possible outcomes with one rogue manager who has shared 1 bit of information without the rest of the contextual info. I have been doing restructures for a few years and as you'd expect there are lots of permutations and some individual stakeholders might even state a preferred outcome. That doesn't mean it will be delivered though.

I don't disagree at all, and he approached me knowing that, like you, delivering business change is part of what I do for a living.

I'm just trying to spin my own mind into the 'devil's advocate' role and seeing what steps he can take based on receiving this rather invidious message.

For example, in the course of normal business, if a manager informally approached a member of staff and said 'you should probably start looking for another job because I don't really want you in my team', then he'd have a CD claim, right?

If this happened, the individual in question would be better advised to wait until dismissal and claim unfair selection rather than resign and claim cd - burden of proof would then be on the employer to show fair process rather than on the individual to show how unreasonable they had been (which would be relatively easy to defend, I'd suggest, blaming a single "rogue" manager expressing a personal view which flew in the face of a clearly fair process, as evidenced by a, b, c etc)

If the individual in question wants to stay, then the best course of action would be to approach whoever is running the consultation, and express their disappointment with the message.