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Nokia calls for Voluntary Resignations

Nokia is to introduce a global "Voluntary Resignation Package" to encourage staff to walk the plank, as well as trying to get them to take holidays and sabbaticals, in order to cut costs. The moves are part of the Finnish giant's ongoing plans to "increase cost-efficiency and adapt to the challenging market environment", the …

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gjw
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+ 1 for corporate decency

If Nokia were a merikun operation they would have axed 20.000 jobs without the blink of an eye.

Andus McCoatover

Happened to me...

...in 2007.

Payoff is based on length of service. I'd done 10 years in Finland, they added 4 years to that. 14 months pay.

€60,000 sounded great (better than hanging around like a dead corpse for the statutary 4 months).

Downsides:

1) Yep, the writer is correct - you don't get (earnings-related*, if youre in an unemployment fund) unemloyment benefit for the 14 months calculated, i.e. the time the "Golden Parachute" would be income

2) Taxman thinks he's died and gone to heaven! Because it's paid as a lump sum, I got 52% shaved straight off the top, instead of the 30% I was paying.

3) You can't get that much help from employment office, because you've 'voluntarily resigned'. In fact, they 'stop' the benefits for 90 days, but that's swallowed up by the above golden parachute time.

Fuck*ing laugh, when I got my "under threat of redundancy" interview/letter, it said precisely that - under threat. However, my manager at the time said in an e-mail "you WILL be made redundant" (her capital letters) so it was a rock and a hard place scenario. I still have that e-mail, might come in useful one day...I believe that was an illegal statement from an Officer of the company.

IMHO - stick with the 'standard' legal** redundancy, don't take the poisoned chalice. You get more gummint help.

*earnings-related. Gives me about €1500/month. For almost 2 years. Better than the UK, God What?

** IIRC, standard, in my case, 4 years service equates to 2 months, 8 years 4, and 12 years 6

Rubber chicken
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This is why I read The Register...

No bullshit reporting:

" But the pill would be easier to swallow of Nokia hadn't pissed away so much money pursuing a Web 2.0 dream."

Love it. Keep it up.

This post has been deleted by a moderator

Doug Glass
Go

No News Here

Standard corporate practice for years. Nothing new here to either report on or comment about other than to say it must be a slow day at El Reg.

Anonymous Coward
Flame

From the top...

Resignations should start at the top. If a company has to ask people not to collect their salary in order to "save costs", the people who are supposed to be organising the business should reconsider their own positions, because they have failed - "economic downturn" or otherwise - to figure out how many (and what kind of) people they need.

I'm sure the CEO could save the company a bit of money by foregoing his salary for a bit... or permanently.

Anonymous Coward
Thumb Down

Nokia - Conning people

I Have worked at Nokia a few years back and resigned because of being deceived to by certain managers and HR - not the most professional business like people I have worked with. It certainly spoiled the enjoyment of working there. Don't believe the rubbish about Nokia being an ethical company.

Good luck to those good ex-colleagues who will or may be facing the chop.

Anonymous Coward
Thumb Up

Sage advice:

Never take the early option.

Hang on and on and on and on....................

Make THEM pay you out - when it suits you.

I did this for 3 years and THEN made them go another 6 months before the final day and the big $$$$$$$

WooT!

Anonymous Coward
Jobs Horns

Next up - volunteer for wedgies

Oh, and we would like to also stick a fork in your eye, and then dip a piece of paper in lemon juice before giving you a paper cut "down there". Please volunteer - thank you. Now, I am off to suck some Learjet fumes and have relations with my "assistant".

gjw
Happy

Pissed away what?

No mobile phone maker is going to survive without value added services. It's Apple’s trick, it's Blackberry’s trick and it's going to be Nokia's trick. The development of those services is just product development. I would hardly call that pissing away money. They maybe backing the wrong horse here, but we just don't know yet. Just like no one knows how much money they actually spent on the development of these services.

It won't be billions.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Ho hum...

I like the idea - Andus' whining about his lack of benefits indicates poor planning on his part. If he'd waited to be fired, he would have received beneifts. On the other hand, if you happen to be able to find another employer easily, the golden parachute makes for a nice fat bonus.

Also: in many countries, you can carry over (part of) your vacation, so employers don't have to pay them out at the end of the year. Rather, the company must make allowance for the liability (accrue the days) which also ties up cash, but does let it sit inside the company.

Andus McCoatover

Re. Ho Hum

<<I like the idea - Andus' whining about his lack of benefits indicates poor planning on his part. If he'd waited to be fired, he would have received beneifts. On the other hand, if you happen to be able to find another employer easily, the golden parachute makes for a nice fat bonus>>.

Not really whining, the benefits came at the end of the "parachute" time. It was my gamble, didn't work out. Bugger Hall jobs around - NSN, now Nokia and other redundancies pretty much flooded the telecom. market. Native Finns always win against foreigners. My bad, I guess. Not enough understanding of Finnish social security system.

Still, cleared my loans, now sitting in a pub...Can't be all bad!

Anonymous Coward
Flame

Re: Ho hum...

"I like the idea - Andus' whining about his lack of benefits indicates poor planning on his part. If he'd waited to be fired, he would have received beneifts. On the other hand, if you happen to be able to find another employer easily, the golden parachute makes for a nice fat bonus."

Well, yes, if you can get a pay-off and another job, you make more money, although I don't see any refutation of his argument about being taxed on the lump sum: for some people a one-off payment, inconveniently timed, can push them into another tax band. The "poor planning" remark is crass: in many situations you can't control both your current employer's willingness to give you the nudge and a potential employer's willingness to hire you. And it wouldn't surprise me if Nokia were to sneak in conditions about working for competitors or customers, as such companies just love to do.

"Also: in many countries, you can carry over (part of) your vacation, so employers don't have to pay them out at the end of the year."

Quite often, accrued holidays are waived by an employee getting the nudge (as opposed to the push). For all those people working overtime with a promise to get time off later (as opposed to actual money), this is a great way for the company to overwork them and never have to pay them when it's decided that they're no longer needed. The "whining", as you call it, makes the key point that if you are given an incentive to quit, you may find it playing out differently from the statutory rights you have as an employee, because you're actually signing a document which can be summarised as "I quit".

Ho hum, indeed. You should clue up a bit more before sounding off about other people's supposed foolishness because a lot of the pertinent detail seems to have passed you by.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Re: ho Hum

"And it wouldn't surprise me if Nokia were to sneak in conditions about working for competitors or customers, as such companies just love to do."

They do indeed have this legally unenforcable clause in their contracts

Anonymous Coward
Paris Hilton

Re: ho Hum

"They do indeed have this legally unenforcable clause in their contracts"

Indeed they are unenforceable, but they can make it a condition that you don't work for competitors if you accept the big pay off. However, having said that, I doubt Nokia's HR or their lawyers are that intelligent.

Paris because she good enough to work in HR.

Anonymous Coward
Coat

@ AC

"but they can make it a condition that you don't work for competitors if you accept the big pay off"

Sorry... you want your redundancy payment back?

Good luck with that.

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