Should you appear desperate for redundancy?

[Freamon]

You need some kind of savings or backup plan. Even though you have a contract lined up, there are no guarantees and you could be walked on day one, left with no income stream at all.

seriously how many permies have got zero savings?

In my experience, the vast majority of them. It's part of the permie mindset.

[SimonMac]

Can't be arsed to read the whole thread but if you are on the bench I hope you are looking for contracts at immediate availability, if you are offered a contract just walk from your permie gig as I doubt they will put up a fight to lose you if they are paying you to do nothing and they save a redundancy package.

[bobspud]

14 years sounds expensive from a redundancy point of view. My guess is that if you were at risk they would have found you by now. They are probably hoping you will go on your own. I would give up the hope of free cash and get on with using your mate to get you a role...

I knew several chaps that sat in BT begging for or expecting redundancy for years, while the managers said "nah don't want to give it to you out of spite... You can sit and rot on the bench." if they had jumped ship when they still had a real skill they would have made the cash back in a year.

[BolshieBastard]

When I was a permie, I turned down an early retirement package as we'd just moved house etc. 12 months later, work was so tulipe I jumped ship and went contracting. Never looked back since.

At the same time, a couple of people I worked with while permie also wanted to go contracting but waited for the next early retirement package. And they waited, and waited, and waited. It didnt come and they missing contracting income for nearly 2 years before finally jacking the dark side off.

[escapeUK]

I was in a similar position. My much loved permie job as IT manager for an international group of companies started to turn sour as the son of the owner got involved and he started to replace senior people with very little experience or intelligence. Over years he became a director (but this was never announced like a dirty secret). The current MD (who was a close friend) saw the writing on the wall and decided to jump ship before he was pushed out.

I ended up in a position where I had a reasonable salary, very little work and a boring but comfortable life. I was waiting, praying for that redundancy. After working there over 10 years it would have been a fair chunk.

Take a honest view, will you get the redundancy in the very short term? If not, get a contract and leave. I wish I had sooner. (I never got mine) But thank goodness for the final straw that made me quit.

[d000hg]

...

Can you give any kind of ball-park idea how big the redundancy pot might be? Let's say you would be getting £250pd after tax as a contractor, how many months' contract work would it take before contract money > salary + redundancy?

[Wanderer]

Having skimmed through the redundancy rights on DirectGov it seems they're supposed to give me 3 months notice of redundancy as well (I've had nowt) so, as 3 months on contract is worth far more, is it worth me "throwing them a bone" & forgoing the notice period to save them 3 months salary (and risk of finding me another job close to home) or are such rights rigid?

I left a job and they didn't pay me "redundancy" but it was some other type of compensation, perhaps this was to get around the consultation period or some other "redundancy" rules. The other thing I found was that the first £30k of the pay off is TAX FREE so I got even more in redundancy than I expected though any income for the rest of the tax year gets hammered for higher rate tax because you took so much in redundancy. You can also have them put all or part of your pay off into a pension if you are that way inclined.

If you have £0 in your warchest then I wouldn't recommend you ditch the safety of your permie job an go contracting. Sit tight and bide your time. If you are doing bugger all then get your head into some study and skill up. It's not so easy to get motivated but now is the ideal time to do it because once you are self-employed, time is money.

A big opportunity of a contract coming up is tempting but if there is one then there will be others. Keep the contact details of the company and be ready to tap them when you are looking for a contract.

Good luck, whatever you do.

[Peejay]

To answer a couple of questions, in a nutshell, the details passed over when I transferred into current company was 2.5x notice period (which is currently 12 weeks) so that's 30 weeks worth (I know of a few people that have been made redundant after bench time, at least one of which had 12 years in so they're not totally against it so it seems.

Contract on offer ATM is 400/day. Even taking into account lack of holiday/sick pay etc. it's still well worth it to me financially.

Out of interest, to assist with steering clear of IR35 does it help if you also do work for another client? Another ex-colleague has been keen for me to do some odd work for him now & then so I'm hoping that'll help as well.

I haven't been stuck in the same location/customer for that 14 years, have moved about a bit for the last four quite happily (different clients served by same company) which helps a bit on the CV as well...

[Wanderer]

How much are you on at the moment? I'd guess £50k? If it's less than than then jump. If it's substantially more than that then sit tight. There is a formula we use here which says contract hourly rate should be permie salary / 1000. Lots of people say that's wrong but that's how much I got going from permie back to contracting and with a big redundancy pay off too. You've got to have that war chest though - it's a tough world out there. If you have a mortgage and some equity in your property then you should get a flexible mortgage while you are still permie - it may be the answer to the war chest problem.

Out of interest, to assist with steering clear of IR35 does it help if you also do work for another client?

Technically, each contract is considered on it's merits but if you are working for several clients at once then that's a pointer to being in business of your own account rather than a "disguised employee" so it may help your IR35 status.

[nomadd]

If you are doing bugger all then get your head into some study and skill up. It's not so easy to get motivated but now is the ideal time to do it because once you are self-employed, time is money

Heed this advice^

And if you find you lack the motivation, then contracting is certainly not for you.