Returning after redundancy, in a different role, via a contract company

A question about : Returning after redundancy, in a different role, via a contract company

Hi,

I'm asking this on behalf of a friend who will soon be made redundant. She has just been approached about returning to a different role, but employed by a service contract company. Her current company seems reluctant to allow this without a 3-month gap between her leaving and returning.

Is the company right to be reluctant, or is it being obstructive? If she was allowed to return without the 3-month gap, would the tax-free status of her redundancy be at risk?

Thank you so much for any help or advice you can give us.

Best answers:

• The employer is right to be reluctant, as seeing someone pocket a wedge of redundancy money and then return to work in the same place is really quite bad for morale among the other employees,and makes the employer look amateurish and disorganised too. However if your friend has specialist skills and/or knowledge then the employer should take the pragmatic view and accept that this may be the best way of continuing to get the job done.
• If the redundancy is genuine then it can go ahead.
  allthough they probably should be offering the position as a suitable alternative if the person wants the job they could go down that route.
  3 month is just to stop the person making a ET claim and there are other ways round that using a settlement agreement for example.
  If the deal on contract is much better than they could get by just switching jobs that is a good incentive to cash in the service take the redundancy and go contracting.
• Company is right as said above. This happens often in many other places and mostly causes demoralization among the staff.
• The fact they say 3 month is an indication they are concerned about an ET not moral.