Hayes said losing her job was “stressful”, but she decided to take her pension alongside her redundancy package and use the opportunity to pursue her passion for baking.
At 55, she said she had “quite a nice pension pot” to help get her business, Kingdom Cakes, started.
Prior to leaving the NHS, she had been kept busy creating birthday cakes for her three children, two stepchildren and eight grandchildren.
Support from an entrepreneurial programme run by Christian organisation, The Lions, helped her take the first steps, offering mentoring and seed funding through a process she described as similar to the BBC television show Dragons’ Den.
Hayes used the money to buy an edible printer that allows her to print images onto cakes using edible ink.
“To me [redundancy] was a blessing,” she said, adding that her husband had taken early retirement and they did not have a mortgage, meaning they “weren’t so worried about the financial side”.
However, Hayes said it could be frightening for people who were less financially secure.
“I know people are struggling,” she said. “There were other girls there who were young and had young families.”
Her advice to those facing redundancy is to consider whether the money could help them pursue something they enjoy.
“I’m very fortunate,” she said, adding that losing her job was an “opportunity to do that dream”.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(471x244:473x246)/CNN-New-Years-Eve-with-Anderson-Cooper-123124-9952e5f00fc1425f87113ba2bfb97b29.jpg "Anderson Cooper Says He Once ‘Hated’ New Year’s Eve While Co-Hosting CNN Broadcast")
