Golden Handshake

A friend of mine has come up with a query. He's been with a firm 10 years and is about to join another firm. This has been arranged by his current employer who is happy to reduce his payroll. So it kind of suits both parties. As a result my friend has managed to negotiate quite a good salary increase as he knows his boss is keen on the deal going through.

Now his current firm are not only going to save on his salary as he will more than likely not be replaced but they will also not have the added expense of making a redundancy payment to him for his 10 years of service.

Would he be entitled to ask for a golden handshake payment of say €5 - €10k or is that just being plain greedy?

I would think it would be very unwise though I obviously do not know the personalities involved.

For example, if your friend asked for 5K and the current employer thinks this is greedy, then would that not put the new job at risk given that the current employer arranged it?

The redundancy is not necessarily a huge figure as your friend is entitled to 2 weeks per year of service + 1 additional week which is capped at 600 euro per week, ie 21 weeks x 600 = 12,600.

If I was the employer and I was asked for 5k-10k in this circumstance then I would simply make your friend redundant if I do have a valid need to reduce my costs to survive.

It seems to me that the employer is acting well beyond his call of duty in sourcing a new job through a contact of his. However, I am only basing this on the information provided in your post.

If he moves to the new job will he lose all his current service?
e.g. could he be laid off 6 mths later, with 0 entitlements?

Yes I think that would be the case. He would lose all his entitlements.

That should have been negotiated at the start, not after a job has been found.