Getting a personnel adjustment letter advising you that your position will be eliminated is already one of the most stressful work situations possible. Being on vacation, especially if you are suffering from a serious illness, the arrival of a new family membermoved by a a spouse or partner serving in the Canadian Armed Forces or the RCMP, or something like that, can complicate the situation further.
There is a short and technical answer to your question, but there is also some important context that deserves to be shown.
No system that handles hundreds of thousands of life events can create personalized responses for every situation, but there are some steps you can take to feel more confident that you’re being given the right information and that you can do something about it if you’re not.
I understand from your question that you have passed the stage of being notified that your position has been affected and are now being advised that you are being removed. Your information suggests that your letter offers the three options of priority entitlement to an additional 12 months, receiving transitional assistance (ie, severance pay), or receiving educational assistance.
If this is the case, the short and technical answer is that the employee who has received the notice is considered to have chosen Option A (the right to an additional 12 months’ priority) if he has not given any other valid response by the end of 120 days.
If you are a represented (unionized) employee, this rule is almost always included in your collective agreement and not one that your manager has the right to change on his own.
If you are an executive, you will not have a common agreement and the process is governed by different orders but it is more likely to have the same result.
So that is the official and technical answer.
The general advice I’ve always followed and recommend to others, though, is to research and read everything you can to understand as much as you can about the processes, regulations and policies that affect you.
Your union representative, manager and human resources representatives can all be excellent sources of information and support.
I would like to pay tribute here to all HR professionals, managers and others involved in helping the affected and laid-off workers, but especially to the trade union representatives who are often volunteers and who have been flooded with requests for support in these past months and who have often been personally affected by many of these challenges.
Almost every order or policy that applies to your situation will be published online – in a collective agreement, Treasury Board order, departmental policy or something similar. If you ask someone for guidance, ask them to tell you which documents they use and which ones you should look at.
You may also be surprised at how up-to-date the results are from online search engine requests. You may or may not like the answers you get, but you may also find options that apply to your specific situation that others haven’t thought of and you may also end up feeling confident that you haven’t been given the wrong answer to a very important question that will have important consequences for you.
I offer you my best wishes in dealing with these difficult choices.
– Daniel Quan-Watson, Civil Service Secrets
