Ex-employer wanting little 'free jobs' after redunancy

LondonKid said:
Interested in people's thoughts on this....

My wife was made redundant after three years of continuous service and left the company on good terms.

Now that she has left they keep sending her emails asking if she will answer a few work questions or put together a little spreadsheet for them (she worked in finance)

She still really likes her ex-colleagues and doesn't like to say no, but i am very much of the impression that they made the decision to terminate her employment and that she should not agree to continue helping them out at her expense.

What would you do? Would you continue to be helpful, would you make up excuses as to why you can't do it, would you just ignore the messages or just bluntly tell them no?
Click to expand...
Bill them, at four times the rate, more if it's only an hours work or so.

This will be worth it for both parties:
1: They don't need the long term employee, needing someone only 5-10% of the time is fair enough reason for making someone reducndant.
2: Your missus can get easy money for next to nothing, on the side.
 
It will cost blah, you know where I am. Cheeky gets.

On the other hand what happens if things go wrong, who is accountable, not your wife, she doesn't work for them.
 
I think your wife is great and she is too good for her old employer.
Unless it's a charity organisation they shouldn't be asking people to work for free.
I would say sorry but I am busy looking for paid work.
 
Colgates_shaving_foam said:
I would say something along the lines of if you contact me again regarding work then I will sue you for wrongful dismissal as my role was obviously not redundant.

Or just F### off

Either way works.
Click to expand...
Yep this. If she'd been there for 3 years, they can't just sack her if she was a good employee unless the role was redundant, which it seems like it really wasn't. They are preying on her niceness. I'd be telling them to do one personally.
 
Does your wife need a job reference from them? If yes I would be a little helpful, say up to 1 hours work. As they say be careful of burning bridges that you might need in the future.

If they need more than 1 hours help yes say they will have to pay her on a self employed basis.

What puzzles me a bit is that people normally serve a notice period with handover activities going on - why did this not occur? Has Covid caused a problem with handover activities?
 
BaronSmoggie said:
Yep this. If she'd been there for 3 years, they can't just sack her if she was a good employee unless the role was redundant, which it seems like it really wasn't. They are preying on her niceness. I'd be telling them to do one personally.
Click to expand...
I would guess its just one aspect of the job role that is continuing not the whole role.
 
There are very few exceptions where volunteering your labour without pay is acceptable. This is certainly not one of them, charge a consultancy fee, your wife's education was earned and likely expensive. Those skills should be rewarded if requested.
 
festa5 said:
Who is asking her? Is it ex-colleagues looking for a favour from a mate or is it being asked of her in an official capacity?

I don't think it changes the answer, but might change how she goes about saying no.

Pretty stunned if it's the former like, very unprofessional and definitely taking the ****.

If it's the latter, still pretty cheeky but it happens. Answering the odd question if it's short and takes no time might be ok if it's something specific that only she would know (where did you save X etc), but knocking up a spreadsheet! My immediate reaction would be that they were on a wind up.
Click to expand...
This is a good point (although I hope Festa5 has got his 'formers' and 'latters' the wrong way round).
I think I would help an ex-colleague mate up to a point, but not 'the bosses.'.
 
LondonKid said:
Interested in people's thoughts on this....

My wife was made redundant after three years of continuous service and left the company on good terms.

Now that she has left they keep sending her emails asking if she will answer a few work questions or put together a little spreadsheet for them (she worked in finance)

She still really likes her ex-colleagues and doesn't like to say no, but i am very much of the impression that they made the decision to terminate her employment and that she should not agree to continue helping them out at her expense.

What would you do? Would you continue to be helpful, would you make up excuses as to why you can't do it, would you just ignore the messages or just bluntly tell them no?
Click to expand...
I’d invoice them for time already spent assisting them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top