Hi UKI I thought I’d share how this awful company illegally dismissed me and many ACG analysts 1 year ago, if you want to ask any questions.
I received an email saying I had ‘Improve Performance’ which I wasn’t expecting, had a call with 2 women I’d never met in HR a few days later who FIRED me. I was shocked.
Never put on PIP, had good feedback, I was automatically given IP as hadn’t been flagged for promo, TAL was 27 months and chargeability 100%.
They offered me £8k Accenture ….cont
We live and we learn. Take it as a blessing in disguise… those who remain have both survivor’s guilt and financial codependency issues that have trapped them here.
By the way – the hardline refusal to declare your exit an official redundancy is because under UK (and Irish) employment law, if 20 or more employees are made redundant within a 90-day period, a whole other level of red tape kicks in… this is called “Collective consultation.” They will be at pains to avoid this at all costs after the last fiasco for the firm when this happened 2 years ago (it was front page news in Ireland for a whole week, with politicians and trade union reps feeding into a media storm).
Rising Star
Join a union
Did you contact ACAS?
What did they advise?
Offered me 8k to walk away. When I signed the contract they told me not to tell anyone at Accenture why I’m leaving or the circumstances behind it (illegal as practically forced)
They told me not to go into the office and not to contact ACAS (to avoid employment tribunal).
I was genuinely shocked and extremely hurt. Even my current manager tried to keep me on the project but they said no.
This company is vile. Any questions, let me know.
It’s crappy yes but not illegal … the whole point of putting you on IP is the paper trail to fire you for performance reasons and the PACE model in S&C has defined expectations of time at level. None of this makes it nice or fair but it’s corporate process. The telling you not to talk to people etc is a part of the settlement that helps the company avoid legal action - you signed it but you can refuse the settlement and take them to tribunal if you think you have a discrimination case and can get more than the settlement offer. Once HR have you flagged it’s all it’s impossible for anyone to overturn it beside who would want to stay at a company actively trying to fire you.
I spoke to ACAS - just because it was covered up and k took the pay doesn’t mean it’s legal to get rid of someone this way, technically it’s not a redundancy. They covered their tracks. I was notified I was on IP then fired 3 days later. Even my letter said I had good performance in the recent round. The way of firing someone this was is actually illegal. I had no Performance Improvement Plan etc. The grounds of poor performance were completely unfair and complete lies.
I was practically forced to take the money unless I wanted to face the emotional turmoil of taking them to a tribunal (which I probably would have won). Even my solicitor said this company is piss poor.
Same thing’s happened to MDs this year. My wise HR friend said that company’s can actually do whatever they want - it’s just certain things open them up to being taken to court. They weigh it up and assess on that risk. It sucks.
So if they gave you money is that redundancy? Better than being ‘fired’ in terms of future job prospects
No technically it’s not redundancy it’s a dismissal. They said it was due to ‘poor performance’. Which was complete rubbish was my feedback was good and I was fired 3 days after being notified i was on IP (for the first time and completely unexpected so I was shocked).
However they said they’d give us references etc. Essentially it was signed off as me being fired and me agreeing my performance was shit by signing the documents, but if asked by externals it was a redundancy (protect share prices etc).
The whole process was so emotionally draining. If it was signed off as a redundancy it would have been fine but the way they blamed it on me and my performance, essentially saying I wasn’t good enough was completely unjust and insincere.
Rising Star
What happened, most likely, is that there was a need to reduce headcount so they enforced clauses and processes which have always been present in our contracts but which usually lie dormant.
They have a robust PA process to give them clear legal cover for this sort of thing.
I’m sorry this happened to you OP. I hope you’ve managed to bounce back.
Rising Star
That’s awful mate. I’m so sorry. I’m only familiar with ‘double IP’ processes whereby they do 2 IPs in a row and you go after the second one.
Genuinely never heard of the process you just described. Was not aware that was something we do.