Divorce in the AI age
In today's fast-paced world, juggling work, family and personal matters can be...read more
Can an employer make me redundant simply because they want me to work full time when I currently only work part time? I am not convinced that this is a redundancy as my position or work is not diminishing. If anything the argument is that there is too much work for me to carry it out part time. If it was a redundancy, I would be the only person in the pool as I am the only person working part time. I would like to know what would happen if I do not agree to increasing my hours. They have mentioned that this could result in me being made redundant, but I don’t agree with this. I don’t want to cause any trouble and accept that I may not be able to continue working there, but shouldn’t I be offered a Settlement Agreement instead of being made redundant?
It’s important to check what are your contractual hours in your employment contract.
It’s also important whether you have always been on a part-time contract, or whether you have been full time with this company in the past and gone to part time latterly. You are in a stronger position if the contract is, or has always been, part time.
1. It would be unwise for the company to insist that a role can only be done full-time; taking this position is a form of indirect gender
It would also be difficult for the company to argue a valid case for making a role redundant where the workload is actually increasing, as you say, because there are no reduced requirements.
2. It’s difficult, of course, to predict what the Company will do if you do not agree to increase your hours.
However, an ET would look unfavourably on a company that made an employee redundant because they couldn’t extend their hours to fill the increasing requirements of a role. The company would need to show to an ET that they had made an effort to consider other alternatives before making your role redundant – for example: taking on an additional person and making the role a job share, where two or more people share what is then a full-time position or dividing up the additional tasks across other members of the team.
If the company has actually cited redundancy as a consequence of you not increasing your hours , that is unlawful and does not follow the correct process.
We would suggest that you check your contractual hours, then propose a meeting with the company. At the meeting ask if they can discuss various options to meet the new job requirements: job sharing the role, i.e so advertising for another part-time role and be prepared to be involved in the recruitment process for a job share.
I have a contract for a certain department at work. I have now been taken off that department and replaced by a zero hours worker.That in itself is... read more
HR expert Kate Palmer from Peninsula outlines your new redundancy rights if you are pregnant or on maternity leave. read more
I have been made redundant after 21 years. The company was sold and I have taken a zero hours contract with the company that took it over - but only... read more
My daughter has been working with her company for several years and has a disability - which her workplace knows about - which means she has to have... read more
Comments [2]
Barry Gapper says:
I have always worked part-time but my company want to replace me with someone to work full-time but do not want to do a job share, they would just like me to leave with no redundancy pay. What am I entitled to.
Mandy Garner says:
Please write to [email protected] with more details about your situation and we can advise you. What is their argument, for instance, that you do not qualify for redundancy pay?