Portsmouth HR expert starts national redundancy help service from her Hilsea living room

The HR expert, from Hilsea, decided to put her skills in employment to good use and she set up a Facebook page to help people going through redundancy.

Emily said she feared the repercussions of lockdown, and predicting a huge surge in unemployment, she knew she needed to help people through the turbulent times to come.

Little did she know that the demand for her support would be so high, it has led her to setting up a community interest company, with scores of businesses involved, helping hundreds of people across the country to navigate the difficult and often stressful process of losing their jobs.

Emily, 32, said: ‘It is a tricky enough time at the moment for anyone due to Covid.

‘People are losing their jobs and it is creating a lot of uncertainty. People don’t know if they are safe. There is a rise in mental health problems and that’s worrying.

‘Businesses can forget that there is a person at the end of what they are doing. We are hoping to bring the compassion back into the process.’

Her company Redundancy Support UK has its own website, as well as Facebook page, and offers free signposting, information and advice. It has a wealth of experts in a wide range of areas offering their help.

Emily said: ‘It is designed to carry them from the moment they are told they might be made redundant, right through to the next steps of getting another job, and give them all the information they need along the way,

‘We know that it’s difficult times at the moment, redundancy is happening all across the UK, in every industry, from our beloved high street stores to the aeroplanes.

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‘I set up a Redundancy Support UK and within a matter of weeks we have turned it into a community interest organisation so that we can help as many people across the country as possible.

‘It is still very early days but we have had lots of interest, we have about 30 local businesses that have come on board as preferred experts and partners that have contributed to the blog.

‘We have a following of over 200 in two weeks and that’s growing. It’s all been very positive so far.

‘There are more than two and a half million people on the south coast claiming universal credit because of lockdown, if that’s the sort of numbers we are looking at then this is a problem that is only set to grow. It is important that something is done now.’

For more go to redundancysupportuk.org/home/about-us/ or search @redundancysupportuk on Facebook.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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