Furlough and recruitment.

[Wheelerdealer 1]

Hi All, My first post so please bear with me. Regarding the furlough scheme which has been a great lifeline for many including myself in this and numerous other industries. what is the general opinion on companies recruiting whilst they still have staff away from work on the scheme and secondly along similiar lines, is it fair and appropriate to announce redundancies whilst actively recruiting? Both aspects are very close to me personally and I'm very dissapointed if I'm honest. I personally think that the programme, to give it it's official title Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is all about that, retaining jobs and any company who takes advantage of it for 6 months then announces almost 200 hundred redundancies should repay that money as they haven't retained those roles?

[justina3 518]

58 minutes ago, Wheelerdealer said:

Hi All, My first post so please bear with me. Regarding the furlough scheme which has been a great lifeline for many including myself in this and numerous other industries. what is the general opinion on companies recruiting whilst they still have staff away from work on the scheme and secondly along similiar lines, is it fair and appropriate to announce redundancies whilst actively recruiting? Both aspects are very close to me personally and I'm very dissapointed if I'm honest. I personally think that the programme, to give it it's official title Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is all about that, retaining jobs and any company who takes advantage of it for 6 months then announces almost 200 hundred redundancies should repay that money as they haven't retained those roles?

The company would be on sticky grounds if there advertising for the same post as there about to make redundant, as regards fair and appropriate i think there are a lot more factors to be taken into account none of this is fair on anyone. 

I also disagree with your last statement i know a lot of business have kept staff on hoping praying the country returns to normal, restrictions have been lifted in a very odd and unforeseeable manor making some business more able to bounce back than others so the businesses that are still heavily restricted or have there demand seriously affected there are left with no option but to lay staff off, making them pay back any funding would finish them off all together. 

[Wheelerdealer 1]

Thanks for your reply. Apologies but I didn't make myself entirely clear. The roles which they are advertising for are not ones that have been flagged for redundancy, however I guess I'm thinking along moral grounds in a general context as to whether it's fair to send out emails announcing "exciting" news relating to "elite" sales teams whilst at the same time announcing alomost 2 hundred job losses across the group.

 

[Paul C 75]

Worth getting legal advice on. I think (not sure) you are obligated to offer any new positions internally for a set period of time (before you can advertise them externally), to those being made redundant, above a certain size/number of redundancies. You can't just assume they wouldn't want that job (maybe with a pay cut), you need to go through the proper process of evaluating their skills and experience etc.

[CCC 31]

It’s often due to skill sets. A friend works in e-commerce. Received 3 job enquiries from M&S the day they announced 7,000 redundancies. If they’d recruited e-commerce skills earlier maybe they wouldn’t have to make so many redundancies. 

[CRW 73]

On 9/16/2020 at 12:40 PM, Wheelerdealer said:

I'm thinking along moral grounds in a general context as to whether it's fair to send out emails announcing "exciting" news relating to "elite" sales teams whilst at the same time announcing alomost 2 hundred job losses across the group.

I think if you are questioning whether it is "moral" you probably have your answer already!