Unfortunately, by the time it gets to this stage you probably aren’t going to save your job.

The consultation process does allow people to make suggestions to reduce the overall redundancy number and I’ve genuinely seen that work. The first time I was involved in the process we started with 46 people at risk and it was ultimately reduced to 26.

If you have a genuine business case for keeping you then it just might work. I’ve even seen things like job share (2.5days a week each) work, where they split 1 role with the view that when things picked up again they’d split into separate roles again. Which they successfully did eventually.

Working in oil and gas I’ve been through 3 redundancy processes in the last 3 years, although have never been at risk myself. That said, I have had to assess my team against a pre-defined scoring criteria to determine who from my team will be at risk multiple times. My wife works in the same industry (we were at the same company at that point) and she was at risk on one of those occasions.

In my experience by the time you get to the one to one meeting it’s already done.

My advice (although not really legal advice) would be to take it on the chin. Be professional and don’t burn any bridges. If you’re good at your job they’re letting you go because they have to, not because they want to. If you go out with class you’re an easy hire when things pick up.