Colleague facing redundancy has asked me to accompany her to HR meeting

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

The place where I work is currently making redundancies. Cuts are being made and 20 people are at risk of losing their jobs.

I'm not at risk but my colleague is and she's been invited to a meeting with HR to discuss the process.

There's basically going to be a restructure and there will only be 5 posts available for the 20 people.

Her post is first line support, but the responsibility for the support is being moved into a different, more technical area where it is unlikely she'll be shortlisted for the job.

She is not part of a union, but the letter says she can bring another person along for support, so she's asked me.

She just wants an extra set of eyes and ears in the meeting so we can compare notes afterwards and see if she's missed anything and fully understood what is being said.

I'm happy to do that, but I was wondering if anybody else has provided this type of support for a colleague?

How proactive do I need to be in this meeting?

Should I sit quietly and observe and compare notes after or are there good questions I could ask?

Are there any things I should look out for (perhaps warning signs in the terminology they might use) and press for clarification if they come up?