Andy Millar:


As a last resort, if sadly you do find yourself in financial hardship for a while, don't forget IET Connect https://www.ietconnect.org/ But equally, many of us have found that redundancy is actually the first step to a new and much more satisfying career.

Yes absolutely get in touch with IET Connect to discuss what they can do to help. Many members forget about the benefits of IET Connect!

I seem to recall a statistic that 3 times is the average across a person's working life.

So far I've been made redundant twice in my working life. The first time was when I was 23 when the photographic company I worked for decided to cut back on their satellite 'mini-labs' around the country. We only found out via a member of staff in our host store who offered her condolences on our redundancy after hearing about it in her team meeting on that Thursday morning. This resulted in a very hasty phone call to our Head Office to ask what was going on and then a visit that lunchtime from a rather sheepish Area Manager who told us that actually, the plan was to visit us that Friday afternoon to tell us that we were no longer needed and not to come back on Monday!  Strangely enough a chat with a friend that lunchtime resulted in the opportunity of an interview that afternoon (which my manager at the time was happy for me to skip off work for as he was a rather good sort) which led to me being offered the job during the interview with a start date of the following Monday!  


The second time was four years later when my employer was looking to move operations to Spain and make around 200 of us redundant. This time I was poached by one of my clients and then got into a bit of trouble with my previous employer for poaching some of my colleagues to come work with me too.... .  My advice to them was, what is the point of hanging around until the end for a pitiful redundancy payment when, depending how long it takes you to find another role afterwards, that money may not last very long! 

Andy Millar:


As a last resort, if sadly you do find yourself in financial hardship for a while, don't forget IET Connect https://www.ietconnect.org/ But equally, many of us have found that redundancy is actually the first step to a new and much more satisfying career.

Yes absolutely get in touch with IET Connect to discuss what they can do to help. Many members forget about the benefits of IET Connect!

I seem to recall a statistic that 3 times is the average across a person's working life.

So far I've been made redundant twice in my working life. The first time was when I was 23 when the photographic company I worked for decided to cut back on their satellite 'mini-labs' around the country. We only found out via a member of staff in our host store who offered her condolences on our redundancy after hearing about it in her team meeting on that Thursday morning. This resulted in a very hasty phone call to our Head Office to ask what was going on and then a visit that lunchtime from a rather sheepish Area Manager who told us that actually, the plan was to visit us that Friday afternoon to tell us that we were no longer needed and not to come back on Monday!  Strangely enough a chat with a friend that lunchtime resulted in the opportunity of an interview that afternoon (which my manager at the time was happy for me to skip off work for as he was a rather good sort) which led to me being offered the job during the interview with a start date of the following Monday!  


The second time was four years later when my employer was looking to move operations to Spain and make around 200 of us redundant. This time I was poached by one of my clients and then got into a bit of trouble with my previous employer for poaching some of my colleagues to come work with me too.... .  My advice to them was, what is the point of hanging around until the end for a pitiful redundancy payment when, depending how long it takes you to find another role afterwards, that money may not last very long!