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Is “have been made redundant” normal phrasing in the UK, or did the BBC just decide to use that kind of bloodless phrasing for “fired?”
by roughly 8mo ago
Is “have been made redundant” normal phrasing in the UK, or did the BBC just decide to use that kind of bloodless phrasing for “fired?”
- pelagicAustral 8mo agoIs the bloodless phrasing for "sacked"...
- roughly 8mo agoI mean is it in common enough use that it shouldn’t stick out to me that a newspaper decided to use it instead of “fired,” “sacked,” or “laid off?” It’s got a whiff of “was involved with a shooting.”
- jebarker 8mo agoIt’s very common phrasing in the U.K.
- alias_neo 8mo agoIt has legal implications, as others have expressed. It means your position was made redundant, and it allows you to be terminated with little legal complication, but on the understanding that the same position can't be re-hired for within a period, I think it's 6 months. Of course in reality it's not that simple, you get "made redundant" then they rephrase the job title a bit and hire someone else. Redundancy in the real, proper form is a consultation process where they will try, if possible to relocate people into other positions, government does it all the time when there's cuts, and they'll often offer voluntary redundancy where they pay you X amount to quit, it's usually a reasonable sum and should leave you with more than enough cash in "normal" circumstances to find another job comfortably, or see you through to retirement if you're pretty close. Sometimes it's just a way to get rid of people who are shit or you don't like. If you're gonna lose your job, being made "redundant" is the way you want to do it.
- s3krit 8mo agoI’ve been involved in this once. There were two of us in the QA department that did subtly different jobs. They wanted rid of the other guy, but as we had very similar roles I had to be involved in the consultation process. What they did is very specifically outline the differences and that his were the ones that were redundant. My manager and friend pulled me into a room beforehand and told me ‘you’re gonna go through some shit but trust me you’re keeping your job’. It all left me with a fairly sour taste in my mouth and to this day I’m not entirely sure it was all above board. If a company wants you gone, they’ll figure a way to do it.
- alias_neo 8mo agoYeah, I went through it 3 times in the first decade of my career, two of them were just like yours, I was told "look, this has to go like this, so you're gonna have to go through the stuff, but don't worry, we're promoting you so you won't be affected". After the second one, I left because it just becomes a shitty place to work. The good people who weren't given a hint they're safe end up leaving because of the risk and hit to morale, then the morale for the rest of you drops. The third one was a little different, they just said this entire country is redundant were moving operations abroad. So everyone was gone.
- ipsento606 8mo agobeing fired and being made redundant are very different under UK law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_in_United_Kingdom_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_in_United_Kingdom_l...
- daveoc64 8mo agoThat's a normal legal term in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights
- 4ndrewl 8mo agoIt's quasi-legal. You can be "fired" for all sorts of reasons, but in making a post redundant the employer can't then rehire for that position, if large numbers of posts are being made redundant then there needs to be consultations etc.
- TimFogarty 8mo agoBeing made "redundant" isn't just an synonym for being fired. It has a specific legal meaning in the UK [1]. When employees are made redundant they are entitled to certain rights including statutory redundancy pay [2]. So it's not just a euphemism in UK contexts. And yes this is normal phrasing in the UK. [1] https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights [2] https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights/redundancy-pay https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights/redundancy-pay
- roughly 8mo agoCool, thank you - it was an awkward enough phrase that it was either a legal term or a management euphemism, glad to hear it was the former and the BBC wasn't just parroting MBA-speak.
- fhdkweig 8mo agoRedundancy is closer to "layoff" than "fired". One is for a clear cause, the other is just "we don't feel like paying you money because a second employee can do that job in addition to his own".
- pdpi 8mo ago"redundant" effectively means "dismissed because your old job no longer exists" rather than "dismissed because you're no good at your old job".