ACN - What's your opinion/views

hi all,

your opinion/view will be appreciated on following queries:

1) During recent redundancy at ACN I applied for VR and got rejected: Can I now be a subject of victimization? Can ACN ask me to leave or now make me redundant "due to what so ever reason" by merely paying a month salary as per my contract terms (as a permanent employee) rather paying the generous package what they were offering at that time. What options do I have should they do this? Have been with ACN for over 3 years. Do I have any legal stand?

2) How much is it "normal" to be on bench for a "Consultant" "Manager" and "Senior Manager" level person respectively before ACN can ask someone to quit or make anyone redundant. In your experience what is the maximum duration you have seen someone in ACN on bench.

3) Is anyone anticipating another round of redudancies in ACN in coming months?

regds

ANON

1) You can always be a subject of victimisation. However, having your application for VR turned down would be very difficult to construe as victimisation. A company is within their rights to refuse VR if they believe someone is too important and valuable to the business. They are also within their rights to decide they had overestimated work requirements and apply a CR programme. In fact, that is quite a normal process - apply a VR programme then, if necessary, a CR programme.

2) It is less a matter of utilisation as perceived business. Someone who is "on the bench" as regards client work but comes up with weekly leads or publishes regular thought leadership is less likely to be let go as someone who comes in at 12, goes home at 2:30 and relishes in telling everyone who'll listen how little they have to do for their pay packet. Those are obviously extremes, but you get the idea. You can do the maths yourself as the point when a given individual becomes unprofitable, but that's only a rough guide to how the decision gets made - even at the peak, a company will have some unprofitable and some profitable staff. I've seen Analysts on the bench for their first 14 months, but nobody fires them because a) it costs a lot to hire them b) it doesn't cost much to continue employing them c) they don't have control over their own resourcing d) they're filling that time with training and e) people appreciate having the tea-making and delivery service

3) Undoubtedly. Look at how ACN has acted in the past. They make the redundancy decision at the margin, with a number of smaller cuts rather than one high-risk reduction. That matches the way demand tails off.

Hi CAN,

No I didn't mean that by rejecting my VR I have been victimized. What my concern is can I be victimized now? considering ACN now knows that I wanted to leave them by accepting redundacy package. Ofcourse the reason they gave me for my rejection was that I am important to their business however, what if 6 to 12 months down the line they say I am no more important to their business due to what so ever reason and they decide to council me out? In that case would they still offer me similar severance package or can ask me to leave as per my contract terms i.e. 1 month notice?

Do I have legal stand considering those whose VR got accepted was not important to ACN business, was not performing to the required standard and they walked away with generous money whereas in my case I was important to their business "as they say", was peforming considerably to the required standard hence, got my VR application rejected only to be victimized within 6-12 months down the line by ACN counciling me out by "NOT" paying the similar amount what I would have got should they accepted my VR? Wouldn't it be unfair treatment by ACN? Wouldn't it be victimization that first you ask your employees to put in front for VR and then you reject their applications just to concil them out within 6 to 12 months time without paying the similar amount what they would have given during VR?

It would clearly mean that those who performed poorly got rewarded by receiving the generous redundancy package whereas those who performed "well" got rewarded by becoming a victim of ACN and got counciled out by merely receiving their notice pay.

I strongly believe one should be able to drag them to court for this sort of unfair treatment.

kindly provide your thoughts!!

regds

ANON

The onus would be on you to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you were being picked out for CR on "unreasonable" grounds.

This is difficult to do if redundancies are being made as part of a programme (most likely - ACN don't run a CR programme for just one person) and systematic selections are being properly documented (again, very likely given how much experience ACN has of running redundancy programmes).

Even if you were able to prove that you were singled out for dismissal, for victimisation you would need to prove that you were singled out on unfair grounds - these are the typical discriminatory grounds. Getting rid of someone on the basis that they explicitly expressed the will to jump ship seems eminently defensible in this context.

In the scenario we've described, the VR and CR programmes are being run sequentially and separately. They have different eligibility criteria. Therefore, you would not have grounds to claim equivalent compensation. In fact, to do so would be unfairly favouring you over others and would open the firm to genuince grievance claims.

If you are so despondent about your prospects at ACN then focus your time and energy on job-hunting, rather than thinking of ways to prolong the pain of the process (and the inevitable outcome). Presumably you were planning to job-hunt anyway when you applied for CR. I hear that there's a firm called Consultingpoint and a recruiter called Rakesh who may be able to help you :-)

Theoretically the number of people who know that someone volunteered for VR and were rejected would be the SEs involved in the consultation forum and maybe (but not definitely) the SE of the applicant's projects. HR claimed that applications for VR would not be kept on any personnel files.

Compensation (in the Uk at least) for being counselled out is generous afaik, as generous as the CR/VR packages.

Really? So i could get managed out and walk away with 6 months pay?