TimeUK mounts $22m Evesham bail-out

End of an era

Evesham really must have been desperate to sink that low.

I've bought three PCs from them before, obviously never again, and I doubt I am remotely alone.

Showrooms closed at 5pm today

but no other communication, so whats happening to the staff of these stores...

have evesham just stitched them up for any redundancy pay or what, if the new company exists surely they have to then make them redundant...

Evesham in Administration

Evesham Technology have just announced to thir staff 4:15pm 3rd Aug that most of the staff no longer have jobs becuse the company has been placed into administration - only a small number of staff have been retained.

as Alanis would say

isnt ironic that the same perosn who blames the government for his woes and mismanagement now expect's that same govenrment to compensate his ex-employees dont suppose i will see him down the unemployment line

screwed for redundancy

criminal - company has no assetts? yet it sold all its stock to a TIMEUK company 2-3 weeks ago!??

What a joke

excellent products and services to its customers

^ This if so funny Evesham doesn't give a ****** about it's customers the last few weeks has proven that, the products suck and the customer service is none existent .

Richard Austin didn't have a clue how to run retail showrooms, if you actually gave us stock to sell maybe it would of turned out differently.

And when your area manager email general assistants asking idea's how to drive sales you wonder that the hell they are doing in the position in the first place.

O and the tedious conference calls what a joke, half an hour of your area manager reapting himself constantly gets a bit much.

Staff

I am currently a member of staff at Evesham, although what I witnessed this afternoon was carnage.

People were stood outside the main staff entrance in tears, with guards at the doors not allowing anyone into the building.

Austin has **** on everyone who works there, the way we have been informed of what was going on is terrible and austin should hang his head in shame.

The staff have been treated like dirt, thrown out without a job. Those with a job just wanting to leave as not only collegues but friends are just gone. This happened around 5pm, with people still milling around long after this, people walking out were just carrying the personal possesions that they had left there, dignity shredded by austin himself. The question is how long are the remaining fish going to be there for, because thats what we have all been treated like, fish in a barrel. some shot and fired, the ones who dodged the bullet are allowed to stay... for now.

Thats the problem with this company, the technical support department is still there, but is this just to deal with the remainder of the repairs and speculation to get the word out not to call us again.

The article here suggests that the company will continue to run its top quality service. Well how is that going to happen with production, sale, tech support, workshop and all other departments losing staff.

What Austin has done is disguisting, he has not even been keeping us informed, he gave us a little meeting 6 weeks ago, this is the first we have heard since and for some the last.

For now the ones left will stay as to claim the redundancy pay rather handing in notice with no pay, but the buisiness is a mess and I urge you all to steer well clear of Evesham Technology.

lol..

You seem to know so much about running retail, yet laugh at the idea of senior managers asking you for your input and ideas?

That's even funnier `Evesham Guy` ;)

You think they will get redunancy?

When they've just shit on people that have worked that for 6-7 years+? the rest will go the same way with another dodgy pre-planned buy/sell administration affair.

You think Richard will spare a moment to think about the people he has screwed out of redundancy pay in this way, as he looks at his healthy millionaire bank account?

Don't count on it - someone who built a company from ground up on reputation and service has just shown what kind of person, even a good one, can turn into.

As for finding out - the stores were closed by administrators/bailiffs - they didn't even get a special Richard Austin announcement - half of them still don't know if they have a job or not because no ones told them Evesham is no more.

Government needs to stop companies from performing disgraceful acts such as this, Evesham had the stock and should have died with some dignity and paid the loyal staff that they did have their due monies.

Instead they took the cowards way out and shafted a lot of people, I hope their reputation is destroyed forever.

No Information

The area managers did what they were told. Richard Austin should be ashamed. Nobody has notified any of the store staff that they are redundant. We have no offical word at all from anybody. The bailiffs turned up at 5:30, and at 7:00, I was on my way home. For all of the birmingham customers that have machines in the back, we did try and call this afternoon, and for all the birmingham customers that have machines being built, you will have had a phonecall from us this afternoon, or a message left. Contact your credit card companies for a refund right away.

Richard Austin should be ashamed of the way he has treated staff, it really is disgraceful.

Jordy

Redundancy

Some of you here don't seem to understand what is going to happen to "sacked" staff. No-one is sacked. The laid off people are being made redundant. The company owes them all redundancy money plus payment in lieu of notice. The company doesn't have enough money to pay, possibly, but the staff will become creditors, and rank above banks and other creditors (the Inland Revenue will rank first for missing PAYE and VAT, though). So if there is anything to liquidate, the staff will get some of the money owed.

sympathies

I'm sort of sympathetic given my own business went tits up when New Labour required approved suppliers (like anyone sane would choose RM for anything!) in education. The amount of times I was told "sorry but I can't go to governors and say we're turning down money even though I know you'd still be cheaper" was something to behold.

It did however teach me never to do business with any part of govt as they change the rules/laws/quangos to benefit themselves - or so it appears. Hopefully Evesham have now learned the same lesson.

I think the problem with that is...

Evesham sold its good stock to TIMEUK weeks ago in order to get money back into the business to then pay disgruntled suppliers.

This would mean that once this type of deal was done, the suppliers would still be happy to trade with Evesham (or whatever the new company is called) afterwards.

I'm just guessing here, but that's where the staffs redundancy money will have gone - the company was running on empty prior to this closure.

lol

You seem to know so much about running retail, yet laugh at the idea of senior managers asking you for your input and ideas?

That's even funnier `Evesham Guy` ;)

^^^ Do u know why I laugh at area managers asking for input on driving sales because I have done so for 7 yeas and they just ignore you IT WAS A WASTE OF TIME but they still wanted ideas , Evesham wanted everything done on the cheap, didn't want to spend any cash and im talking about 3 years back the good times, still wouldn't to jack to get some exposure.

I did crap loads of cold calling and 9 out of 10 they would say "Evesham WHO ????" nobody had a clue about evesham

I think you'll find...

the regional managers got just as frustrated by the lack of "investment" in retail as you did, I know mine did, and his manager too - but their hands were tied, it's always been that way regardless of who the regional managers were.

Don't blame them for the companies inability to invest in retail, blame the people at the top who were so fixated on business sales - only then for business sales to ultimately be the cause of Evesham's demise - forget these excuses about HCI - yes it made up a large portion of sales, but what were they doing before this came in?

Retail sales alone will never carry a company along when it's main focus is NOT retail sales, this was just another angle of the business, and once the business side of Evesham failed to bring in the numbers (for whatever reason) retail was always doomed - regardless of how many cold calls you made.

There are some damn good staff (sorry, were) in the branches and they will be much better off (and better paid!!!!!!!!!!!! 15k for a store managers job with x amount of business sales required too was just a joke and you are worth more than that! The same goes to the sales people, the skills most of you had are unseen in so many retail companies that any companies with a clue will see the talent you have for selling *AND* customer service - something sorely lacking in a lot of companies.

Whilst it's not an easy time for all, think of it as a blessing that you actually got out with some experience with which to take to a company that will recognise your talents and reward you for them, and I'm sure most customers that you guys and girls have dealt with would praise you for customer service at the branches.

Yeah

I understand that area managers hands were tied but asking stupid questions about ideas to increase sales just really got on my tits.

I know this is all done to RA inability to run a company reallied far to much on HCI didn't have any sort of back up plan after HCI went tits up . I mean what happened to all the profit that HCI made did RA invest back into the company hmmm didn't look like it to me my showroom looked like a bag of shit falling to bits. How many times was my showroom promised a reimbursement hmmm about 20 even went to the planning stage before i bet RA pulled the plug .

Evesham fiasco

Please don't assume the Evesham management are to blame: they are probably between a rock and a hard place and have no input into whats happened. I would think it likely that the whole episode is orchestrated by the Mohans and sounds like a rerun of the Time administration. There we all knew the place was going tits-up but nothing was said by "the management". In both cases all the directors - bar the MD - did a runner before the eventual closure, presumably in objection to what was planned by the brothers, who were the real power in the business.

If they've managed it as well as they did the Time closure, all the money will have been extracted from the business and those redundant will be looking to the the goverment for their redundancy. At Time the DTI were involved at an early stage and rushed through the redundancy quicker than normal. If they are not involved yet - get them in, quickly. Also a point to remember is that at Time those in the Trade Union effectively got paid off twice - once for redundancy, but also a very similar award due to lack of consultation prior to the redundancy. If any of you are in a Union, get them to liase with the GMB over what happened at Time - there is a useful precedent there that you could be able to follow.

One thing seems for sure - there's no future for anyone at the Evesham site. There is so much spare capacity at Simonstone that there would be no point running both.

On a different tack, who are the administrators?

Still in shock...

I still can't believe we had no official statement to say we were all out of work. The first most of us knew about it was when the people representing the administrators walked into the showrooms, said they were there to do a stock check and someone was going to change the locks and we had to send our staff away. We all assumed we would at least get *some* notice, and a chance to find new jobs, but nope - Richard Austin screwed us all over by doing this, and the people who get to stay probably won't get to stay for long. I finally left my showroom at just gone 9, having stayed behind to help with the stock check, and I'm actually still in shock.

There were some truly great people working for this company, and none of us deserved this, especially after the last few weeks of having to bullsh*t to our customers about the lack of stock. To all my former colleagues at Evesham, whether I knew you or not, I wish you all the best.

Moral Standards........

Any company undergoing a major re-structure would at least have the decency to discuss this with employees. I find it totally incredulous that any company that has spent so long building a solid and reputable foundation can now find it so easy to throw this out the window and not even notify the employess in the showrooms until some gray faced gentleman with a warrant badge turns up late afternoon on a Friday and says I'm sorry your out of a job!

This is not how you play the game Mr Austin.

I understand you have a business to run and need to make money, but do you really need to treat the people that run your business for you like that?

Appoligise from an suddenly ex employee

firstly can i say sorry for the customers of evesham technology, you are no longer goin to get the help you need.

due to fact is lots of the employees lost there jobs today.

For there reasons richard austin the chair man was there in the canteen standing silent while we were all told by some other person from administration that we all lost our jobs!

barely a hand few were left,

Engineers, buisness, technicians, sales, u name it were all told we were sacked so to speak!

I have given that company the best part of 5ish years and to see my job be gien up just like that makes you sick!

Why Richard never had the balls to tells us makes you think!!

The company wont continue the way it was cause there is hardly anyone left to do so!

i regreat to inform the customers of evesham this has happened

What a mess

I Also work at evesham and I spent 2months worrying about my job, when it was announced.

We were kept in the dark for 2months and then all rounded up into the canteen and told to to leave etc. Department managers had no idea what was going on.

The day before customers machines couldnt be repaired because of no parts. Items werent being shipped out due to not being able to pay for collections. The whole place went into total melt down.

I sat outside watching mates and employees leaving and probably never returning :(. (Was there a real need to get rid of 90% of staff.) This is a real sorry sight as most people i knew and got on with have been with evesham for years.

As 5:00pm drew closer it became obvious that something was happening. 4:30 mail server was turned off, 4:45 Meeting called, 5:00 employees being escorted out of the building.

Once again i cant describe the havoc this week has been, I can only feel dissapointed in how Richard dealt with this matter and how badly the we were treated. Im suprised that we didnt all walk out .

Thanks for all the fish

Evesham staff

Posted Friday 3rd August 2007 23:37 GMT

For all the many years I've bin with Evesham, i can say it was great, until the last 2 or 3 years. Both middle and top management were the most blinkered and useless I have ever worked for. swapping whole systems out just because a fan on the agp video card didnt work, as we didnt do agp any more.( customer new pc, evesham, loss of sale and a stack of parts that are old and useless.) As Evesham micros / technology or woteva it has mutated to, my heart goes out to my fellow collegues, who like me, have been really screwed. If Richard had any heart, he would have employed us all to the new company, and then made us redundant with the money we deserve. The company isnt 'bust', its just a different name, the same as Time did. Its left us to wait for compensation from the government, while it carrys on trading under some new name. I dont know whos worse off, those laid off with no redundancy pay, or the poor people now working for Evesham-Time-Geemore or woteva its called. As for all of you that have bought Evesham kit, well good luck with it, you now have less than half the staff to support it. If you are an employer, and you have an ex evesham employee in front of you in an interview, just know that this person will be loyal and hard working, we all did our best to the end, and we were discarded and treated like street trash. As for the future of Evesham , well only TIME will tell

think this subject needs a forum

Why no mention of Administration in reports?

I can't understand that none of the reports have mentioned administration, just restructuring or rescue package.

I was confronted by a bailiff and told he was acting for an administrator, the fact that Evesham is still trading as the same company and claiming that it is just a restructure almost certainly means that this is a pre-pack administration and all staff that have lost their jobs should get their redundancy from the new company, or the old one if you believe what they have reported.

A good customer of the Nottingham showroom, who is an administration advisor, has explained to us that in this situation the new company takes on the contracts or responsibility for redundancy payments from the company they are buying or "rescuing".

He said above all do not panic, this takes a little Time.(excuse the punn).

This is very different from a full administration, in that Evesham are still trading now and have turned this around in hours, this can not be a full administration, so the company we all worked for is still there and should have to pay us all redundancy. I am certain we will all hear something on Monday.

If not I will see you all out side Evesham HQ Tuesday 10am

:-) and for a drink at 12PM.

I wish all the ex-staff and the loyal customers a good future.

Disgusting

I was one of the lucky few who saw what was coming and managed to get out early, however i have been on the phone to friends and ex-colleagues all evening many in tears.

Evesham was more than a workplace we were like family, It wasn't about the job it was about the comaradarie.

RA seems to have forgotten the people that put that ferrari in his garage (well at least until the floods hit - divine retribution???) and the food on his table

The whole situation was handled abysmally by all concerned, the people who have been made redundant now face an uncertain time waiting to hear how long they will have to wait for redundancy packages and where these payments will come from - Do you think their bank managers and mortgage lenders will be sympathetic - will they say "you know what don't worry about paying your bills this month it's fine!" i doubt it very much.

What is even worse is there are a large number of couples who both work(ed) for Evesham and so they have now possibly lost complete household incomes - many of these people have famlies to support and with a new school year about to start the expenses are horrible - but hey - Kids don't need shoes do they!?

For the few staff that remain - i wouldn't be in their place for anything - can you imagine the number of calls that are going to be flooding in as soon as the news goes out to all the Evesham Customers who are expecting to recieve that World Class customer service Evesham has banged on about for so many years.

To my firends that are left - good luck you are going to need it!

To my friends that have been scrapped - Look at it as a lucky escape.

Amazingly a lot of the (ex) employees still feel that RA did his best by them and had no choice - remeber that on Monday morning whenyou have no where to go besides the job centre!

Amen to that...

I have to agree the way the late great big blue 'E' has behaved have been absolutely disgusting.

With no methods of payment left to the showrooms (debit, cash, cheque and finance ALL being withdrawn) and the laughable balls up with the courier company leaving us no stock; it's no wonder the whole retail arm of the company ground to a halt! And people wondered why we were all bordering on the side of caution..? Sales is a cut throat world but 99% of all sales staff in the big blue 'E' were real human beings, we had lives and we had moral issues with over-selling to people (unlike some firms...), always put the customer first and (more often than not resulting in putting ourselves out personally with no hint of thanks) prided ourselves in giving the customer the very best service we could, thus earning ourselves the highest recommendations as 'the' bespoke (and only premiere UK based) IT manufacturer. We often would not think twice about putting in that extra mile for a man who never bothered directly communicating with the people who made him his money!

Despite threat of closure and for those in the know you know who we are, we managed to hold back the wolves from our doors and hold on to our pride and dignity until the bitter end; which happened around 5.05pm Friday 3rd August 2007. This day will always be remembered as a mark of disrespect from someone on 'Mount Olympus' to all those 'mere mortals'...

I feel a new verb has been added to the 'E' nglish language. 'To Austin'... Make of that what you will...

To my former colleagues, and there are unfortunately quite a few; my respect and sincerest sympathies, my heart goes out to you all. If I'm ever in a position to receive a CV with Evesham Technology in it, rest assured you are guaranteed a job for I know the calibre of employee you are. To my customers; I am ashamed. I hope in the next life you will find it in your heart to forgive me; for I was like mushroom - fed on s**t and kept in the dark.

Ex Employee

Having worked for Evesham Technology for just short of 11 years I thought I deserved more than a 2 minute phone call to say I no longer worked there.

I was not even told face to face.

I hope Richard Austin and his side kick Shaun Morris can sleep at night knowing just what a shambles they have made of this whole fiasco. The pair of them can keep their crocodile tears, what a joke that was pretending they were upset,obviously loyalty means nothing these days but hey as the saying goes what goes around comes around.

Title

As the wife of one of the managers, can I just say virtually everyone was kept in the dark. My husband was as shocked as Joe Bloggs was and is now going to the job centre on Monday like everyone else. He enjoyed his 10 years there and loved the atmosphere most of the time-but the last 6 weeks every one was in limbo.

There had been rumours E would merge with another company but then when RA turnedcoated thats why the directors left enmass in disgust.

You chaps/chapesses were good why not approach Gordon Brown and ask him to set up the 1st nationalised computer co. you have all the skills needed-just money required or get together and set up your own co. Maybe approach some of the old directors for financial backing. Become the "E-phoenix ".

I hope you all get your due monies ASAP and all find new employment, maybe still working with some of your old colleagues.

BB Site

Chaps - FYI if you need a site to contact each other on, the old Time Independant Employees Forum is still existant (though not used much) as was specifically set up to be a point of contact in cases like this. Its at http://pub2.bravenet.com/forum/123673187

Unfortunataly the other two forums tinycon.com and tinysux.com were both shut by legal action. However the ITEF is still there, works and is available for postings.

The other point is get together to act.

(1) Push for a rapid redundancy payoff. If the old company has been closed and is cashless, then you have to claim from the DTI. Do it as quickly as possible

(2) As there has been no period of consultation over the redundancy you have an additional legal claim for this failure. If you take them to court you will win. Speak to your Union over this - if you don't have one, try discussing it with the GMB - they've had a longrunning campaign against the way the Mohsans treat their staff.

another interesting thing is the time on the byeline

some seventeen minutes before we were told anything

Laughable

As a now Ex-Employee of Evesham you can imagne i have been checking out all the on line stories around yesterdays goings on.

I find it laugable that the representative from Time who have supposedly sent Evesham a $22 million pound lifeline has commented on a couple of sites that - “Evesham is an excellent brand which has always offered a level of service which its customers have grown to love. By funding this restructuring, we intend to allow Evesham to continue delivering excellent products and services to its customers, so it’s business as usual.”

How exactly are they intending on offering the service our customers have come to expect and business as usual with only a handful of staff to cover not only their own jobs, but also the jobs of their now missing colleagues?

It seems that even now, after all that has happened those that are supposed to be working for the best of the employees and customers alike still cannot tell the truth, or maybe they are just burying their heads in the sand?

Or worse still maybe now that most of the staff who could have sold, built or supported the products have been given the boot, Time will use the stock Evesham sold them at a ridiculously low margin last month to fulfill all the Evesham back orders, i doubt any of the Sales staff will see the commission on these orders even though it is they that have gone out and found the customers in a vain attempt to help keep the company going.

The management could take a lesson from it's employees - we didn't look for the easiest solution when the going was tough we pulled together and tried to find new channels and new customers to bring in business - makes me feel sick now to think of the hours i personally put in working on deals that i won, but never received a word of thanks for, i know it was my job and sales was what i was paid for, but like many of my friends at Evesham i put in more hours than i was paid for and i know for a fact that we all went above and beyond the call of duty to try to save our Evesham Family.

Lets just hope that some of that $22 million goes to the now ex-employees who come Monday when the reality sinks in will find it is anything less than "Business as Usual"

Another ex employee from Peterborough

Well after reciving a phone call from my friend at work telling me the Administrators had arrived and i needed to come in on my day off to hand my keys in as i had no job any more i was very pissed off as you can imagine. But what really was annoying is when i turned up at 11am ish i was told by my reginol manager that the whole thing was a cock up and the showrooms were not closing down and that we were all still in our jobs shortly after the Administrator left and my manger returned after i had called him telling him this was a balls up i went home after all this was supposed to be my day off!!! imagine my utter disgust when i recive a call from my manger this morning informing me not to come in to work any more as i no longer have a job, this is beacuse after being promised we still all had a job the admistrator turned up again ariund 5pm yesterday telling him he had to leave again and this time it wasnt a cock up :(. I cannot belive that both the loyal Staff and the customers have been treated in such a way to the customers who have returned your goods to us under warrenty i am sorry but you may never see your goods again to they guys at peterborough i worked with you guys were the best Manger / deputee manger i could of worked with if only the people higher up would of listend to your suggestions maybee Evesham wouldnt have gone the way it did. And finaly to the rest of the Evesham staff that i didnt know good luck to you all i hope you all find jobs where you are treated with the respect you all deserve (rant over :D) G

tearful descibes last night.

FIRSTLY I MUST SHOUT AT THOSE THAT PLANNED ALL THIS.

Just a short message from thse in the know to people "saying keep your eyes open for a job guys" As it was, they were probably scared most people would walk out leaving the fiasco to fall to peices before they were ready to take their cut.

Stupidly, most long timers such as I (9 years) would have rallied and pulled out all the stops to help should they have told us. That's your loss Richard.

there is a good chance we'd have stayed for a pay cut. thoses that decided to leave may have been large numbers but i doubt it would have been much different to those that were dumped.

Giving staff no information was WRONG

"managers" telling everyone the rumours were not true was WRONG (i use the term manager as a name not a description of what they did)

WE ALL SAW the stock moving to TIME over the last few weeks. stock that was already paid for by customers and just needed building or shipping.

EVESHAM was more than a place, it was filled with some of the best people i know i will ever meet.

ONCE AGAIN, JUST A MESSAGE SAYING "JOBS ARE AT RISK" WOULD HAVE SAVED A LOT OF HERATACHE. BUT NO, YOU WERE SCARED PEOPLE WOULD WALK AS YOU HAD PAID THEM EARLY.

MAYBE IF YOU HAD A LITTLE MORE FAITH RICHARD YOU MIGHT HAVE DISCOVERED JUST HOW FAR THE BEST STAFF IN THE COUNTRY WERE WILLING TO GO WITH YOU

I am sad, very sad, but there is a GROUP of people at evesham that don't need to work in the same place to keep freindships made at Evesham into the rest of thier lives.

look this GROUP up on face book, just type in evesham for those lost on Monday. some solace can be gained from good freinds should you need it.

J

Life in the PC Business

Just a few words from someone who has kept a watching eye on Evesham for many years after leaving. The company achieved sales of over £100M some years, anyone who says Richard Austin cannot run a marketing led business needs to look at that figure. I am confident that Richard will have done everything in his power to save the business in its original form, whatever people may say or think his business meant a lot to him personally. As for all the comments here about not knowing how to run a company, perhaps those people could try it themselves? The PC market place is incredibly wafer thin margin wise thanks to the transparency of the internet, The Gross margin that most PC companies make is near the Net margin of most other business sectors. It is a consistent rule of business that to keep going and keep employing people you have to make sufficient profit and not lose money, it is clear Evesham were not achieving this but to blame Richard Austin for that is extremely narrow-minded.

Yes people have lost their jobs and this is a real shame and with the business in the state it was not avoidable. To those that worked there in recent time remember that Richard paid you early to ensure you all got paid until the end of July, or has that been forgotten already?

To the person who highlighted the removal of all 'cash' based payments for customers. This would only be to protect those customers from losing their money. Another sign that Evesham were trying their best to prevent to issues caused by the previous failures of other companies.

Companies go bust every day for various reasons, I am sure Evesham could have done things differently but so could every company. One thing is for sure is that Richard will be worse off without the 'old' Evesham, maybe some people may say that is justified but he built the business to where it was and his marketing skills pulled the company out of trouble many times. I am sure we can all run 'perfect' businesses in our heads but reality is so often different. To all those people who I classed as friends when I worked there for my 11 years I wish them all the best.

Ex Employee MK201

I used to work for evesham (as from yesterday) and eventhough I am without and job. I met a lot of decent people there who are in the same position as me. I feel gutted and let down, just like other people who have commented on this site. However, no one has mentioned the position the customers are in. What I mean is I have been told to lie to my customers about the delays on their orders when I know dam well that they will not be getting their goods! There is no courier and no stock!! I know I should be thinking of myself first, but that is the wrong attitude. OK, I have no job to go for but most people who I dealt with have been saving up for ages to spend £1.5K with a "reputable comany" and parted with their cash with me under the trust of myself and the company and I feel that they have been let down big time. If you are a customer and is waiting for your goods, please think VERY hard in what your position is at the time of speaking.

Best Wishes

To all my old friends at Evesham, I hope everything goes OK for you. I meant to keep in touch with my best buddies, wish I had now. HCI wasn't to blame, it was just a natural process of PC's becoming a commodity. Anyone who remembers me, get in touch any time. Darren.

Wiki

The Wiki page for Evesham Technology has been updated and suggests they're still going to exist... just from India!

Quote:

"Evesham Technology has on the 3rd August 2007 made almost their entire workforce redundant as Time UK plans to restructure using the Evesham name on their inferior products. The remaining staff will stay to complete outstanding orders until they will finally be made redundant. PC manufacture will then be relocated to india where lower production costs will ensure competitiveness. Support will also be eventually outsourced overseas to reduce operating costs."

Disappointment

I am in the same boat as most of these people who have Commented on this site. I was one of the people in the canteen yesterday. Not only am I angry about losing my income. I am more angry about loosing my best friends who have helped my throughout my 2 1/2 years of fun, hard work and teamship. The company had a great, professional team who were dedicated towards the welfare of the company and we all got was a let down, big time. Cheers RA, my mate. I just hope you can sleep tonight in the back seet of you Ferrari.

Another Ex.Exployee, but one who escaped in the nick of time!

Shocked and horrified to read this morning what happened at Evesham yesterday. By a stroke of luck I managed to escape from, what has always been a wonderful company to work, only 6 weeks ago! And that's after 16 years there!

My thoughts go out to all those splendid people who have worked their socks off over the last few years and have found themselves in this situation. It's easy to throw blame around here, but I don't think Richard (Austin) had many choices left to him in the end.

Employers be aware! Evesham Technology ex.employees are 'GOLD', give them a chance and you won't be disappointed - some of the finest employees I've ever worked with!

Gordon Brown and his 'guaranteed' HCi scheme, that was pulled with only 10 days notice!!! Hang YOUR head in shame - his personal decisions at that time had been a major factor in this (what can I do, but change my vote next time).

Good luck everyone involved. I'm thinking of you all!

so I take it the web site needs updating:-

http://www.evesham.com/cms/info/jobs/default.asp?e=AA4C1709-AFD6-4D89-A9E3-3583CB6AA549

N o surprise...

RA just got lucky and had no massive business skills but was just in the right place at the right time and finally his luck ran out.

Its amazing some people are shocked they ended it like this considering sounds pretty much the same way they ran they did it and treated the staff in the past 3 redundancies - Anyone remember PRP? ever heard of completive salaries anyone?, working hours changed at the drop of a hat? and no hope of moving up within the company except for the favoured few.

I'm glad I got out when I did and its been obvious for a long while the end was coming, and I wish all the staff that didn't manage to in time the best for the future. You put up with their poor working conditions for far too long and without a doubt the grass is much greener on the other side.

To the friend of Richard trying to defend him...

Before you start talking about how Richard did this that and the other over the last few years, why don't you think about the fact that Evesham continued to pay only its most senior staff (directors) a high salary whilst most others remained on an income that was only "mediocre" SEVEN years ago.

It took showroom staff to put pressure on a completely misguided marketing manager (no names) who believed that advertising in any other national paper such as The Mirror, Sun and so on, was something only "cheap" companies would do despite the fact that so many young professionals with incomes of 20-25k+ read these papers on a daily basis.

Is that your idea of "amazing marketing skills"? lol you're as ignorant as they if you truely believe that.

Where did the money go from the year Evesham pulled 100+ profit, because I'll tell you now - it wasn't invested back into the company, and that's what you do if you want your business to really grow and succeed - you invest in it, instead most of the showrooms for example look like run down £1 shops.

But hell Richard and co - you probably never knew that because I personally don't EVER remember seeing you at one in 7 years.

Instead the business was left to slowly deteriorate over time with a lack of investment and lack of direction, HCI came at a point when Evesham were heading for trouble - if it hadn't arrived then all this would have happened a LOT sooner.

The fact that HCI was such a success was down to one man too - Curtis Maclean, former Director of Sales, who funnily enough - also got shat on by Evesham - the man who probably saved Evesham through his realization of HCI and sheer cockney talent, wasn't safe from this kind of treatment either and you can find stories about that if you search too! :)

There will are a lot of bitter people after this, but as I've said before - move on, I know it's hard, but claim what you can from these scammers/government, and take your skills to a job where you will get paid what you are worth!

The only company I know where they expect their sales people to be the best in the industry, yet pay them less money than the spotty kid working for McDonalds.

It's testament as to why so many people stayed as long as they did, because they actually loved the company as much as you Richard (obviously more it seems).

We deserved more

A sad and rather undignified way to go out, but then given the last few weeks I suppose we should've expected nothing more or nothing less. I wasn't in on Friday, but heard all about the sorry debacle when my boss called me at 5.15pm to say I was out of a job. 5 and a half years gone in the blink of an eye. C'mon Richard, a months notice is the LEAST we, your loyal employees should have expected and received don't you think? :(

HCi might have played a big factor, but of course its not the main reason a few hundred staff are now out of jobs and heading for the dole queue Monday morning...however I'm not gonna sit here and start slagging off the management, no point.

I'd just like to say I worked with some great people at Evesham, more than a job, it was a group of friends who I hope to stay in touch with. I thank Evesham for the opportunites given to me but a bitter taste is left in my mouth at how this has been handled. Now the good people of Evesham are left competing for jobs...fingers crossed we all get work at companies where we are are treated in a more dignified and professional manner in times of hardship. Next few weeks will be tough on all of us, especially those with mortgages to pay and families to feed but we'll survive and come back stronger. Good luck everyone. Tom

Better news ish

If my calculations are right and Evesham made over 100 people redundant on Friday, according to the DTi website and hand book he would have had to have given them 90days notice or he personally faces a £5000 and court costs. If he has carefully limited the redundancies to less than 100 it would have been 30days.

If he is not taken to court, he knew what he was going to do back in May.

As for the posting that say's we should not blame him, I'm sorry but he took the profit and bought a Ferrari when times where good, he can take the blame now it's gone tit's up.

There are other options when down sizing a company due to falling sales and the low profit without shafting your friend and colleges that have given many years service to you. As for the marketing skill did you ever see the E2u that he proof read?

I am sure anyone would feel differently if they were working there over the last month and were now out of work.

When things get sorted out we should apparently be due roughly 1 weeks pay for every year we worked for the company, providing it is more than 2 years and less than 12, in lue of notice payment and roughly the same for anyone of showroom manager and below wage in redundancy payment. Unless we get a job before we claim, then things change a bit and you could loose lue of notice.

The funny thing on the DTi site is that if we have not been officially told in writing that we are redundant we still accually class as working for Evesham Technology.

See you Tuesday Morning at HQ :-)

A Customer

I've just dropped my £3000 computer at Evesham for repair. Ever since the original purchase back in April I have found support to be very poor. I am now concerned what will happen to my computer??? No one at the main office showroom in Evesham mentioned anything about what was happening. I feel really sorry for you guys.

eveSHAMbles

Having been at Evesham for the last three years, its a real shame how it all ended.

I'm sure Richard tried his best, but unfortunately the PC market is volatile and we just couldn't keep up. A lot of posters are conveniently ignoring the fact that we got payed a week early by Richard to ensure that we were payed for July.

However, the way the whole administration was conducted was clandestine, to say the least. Endless speculation during the last 2 months was the worst with the rumour mill being in full operation.

Recivieng an email at 4:25p.m directing half your team to the canteen and the other half downstairs.

Shutting off the email servers at 4:30 and having an administrator with short-man syndrome keeping it short (sic) by telling you to collect your belongings and leave the building with 5 minute notice was a bit difficult to stomach.

Made so many good friends at Evesham and its those who will be missed the most.

I hope for all the best to everyone I worked with and for the few guys still at the SHAM, hope it works out for you.

What happens next?

My mother worked at Evesham for over 10 years and yesterday, like many of her colleagues, was suddenly told she no longer had a job (although her Manager didn't even have the decency to tell her face to face and only called her on her mobile after much cajolling by her colleagues on site).

It appears that the staff were sent X Factor style into two rooms to await their fate with one being the "Winning room" (ha ha) and keeping their jobs and the other employees being told to leave almost immediately. Surely, if the company has been put into administration, as stated by RA, how can certain employees be retained and others told to leave when no appropriate consultation period or selection process for redundancy had taken place previously. Who decided which employees stayed and which didn't and upon which set of criteria was this based upon according to appropriate employment law? Who will the employees be working for from Monday and will they need to reapply for their own jobs?

So many questions... but what I really feel is that those employees who have been so badly let down should not give up and roll over. Let Richard Austin and his merry men know exactly what a mistake they made in treating such loyal staff so badly by showing them what you are capable of. Why not jointly appoint a legal representative to advise upon the legality of these actions? Set up a pressure group, contact local and national media, whistleblow and tell your stories. Do not let this lie and do not allow the Directors to walk away and continue to trade upon the good Evesham name - let it become synonymous with underhanded dealings, lies and deceit from a Management that should have known better and should have done much more to protect its loyal staff.

Questions

So a few questions

1) Were any of the staff in a union? If so which one, and are they on the case?

2) Have you heard anything from the DTI about redundancy payments? You should have been given claim forms to fill in. Have you? If not get onto the DTI urgently

3) Who are the administrators? So far I've not seen them identified anywhere.

Another Ex-Employee

As an ex-after sales support technician (tech support) dealing with the more tricky issues, I can safely say that it's unsurprising that the company had ended this way.

Constant releases of products that were basically un-fit for the intent in which they were sold, with little or no information about said products given to anyone in tech. In fact, only really the product managers ever got to see the products before our customers did, oh apart from the people who packed them into the boxes.

QA checks before equipment was sent out were non-existant, bad components were continuosly used (and sold) with known problems that *would* affect customers, presumably due to some cushy deal with said suppliers. R+D were completely unable to do their jobs and completely over-ruled by the profit margin. I personally was a specialist for one product, that I'd never even used .. we ended up learning more about our products from customers than from any internal source, not that the more senior technicians didn't try, but they were so bogged down with bereaucracy and an almost conspiratorial veil of secrecy over any information that could prove to be useful that they simply could not perform the job which they were aiming to do.

So essentially a company reliant on it's image was forced into selling inferior products coupled with an under-equipped after-sales department collapsed, as it was inevitably going to do in most people's eyes, and especially at the Director / MD level ..

Which is such an incredible waste as there were some truly talented people in tech support and across the whole company, a great bunch of people, united in the face of adversity until the end, unfortunately they've all been totally bitchslapped by the very hand that fed them.

I just hope that everyone can move on to other jobs and stay in contact with each other, and to all the ex and current employees of Evesham Technology Ltd - Nill Illigitimi Carborundum.