What makes a redundancy settlement agreement favourable?
If you have been made redundant and you've been given a settlement agreement by your employer, you need to get professional advice. But there are a few things to look for, that might indicate you are starting from a good place:
Settlement payment of 6 months (or more) salary
Finding a new role could take some time. If you can avoid dipping into savings, it's ideal.
If your employer is offering the equivalent of 6 months of salary as a settlement payment, you'll have the time to find the right role without having to eat into hard earned savings.
Favourable job reference
If your settlement agreement includes a commitment from your (soon to be ex-) employer to give you a positive job reference, then it puts you in a strong position.
Especially if your employer makes it clear that redundancy was not their favoured option and ideally they'd have kept you on if things had been different for the company.
Bonus and commission
If you're being made redundant mid-way through the year, you normally won't be owed any annual bonus. If your employer is agreeing to pay a bonus, or part of it, it's a good sign.
Same goes for any commission based payments such as sales commssions.
What to do next?
There are things to watch out for in a redundancy settlement agreement. Once you've signed it, you likely won't have rights to claim more from your employer.
You need to take professional advice and your employer will usually pay for you to get legal help from a specialist employment solicitor.