Page 125 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

is still seen as a situation tool to fix short-term problems. Human resource policy
is not yet understood as a critical component of company strategy.
Transfer companies also offer substantial customer potential for educational
and qualification institutions. Transfer service providers, therefore, influence
tendencies and contribute concepts and ideas to the overall vocational training
market.

6.6.6. Innovation and effectiveness
Whereas other transfer service providers extensively use workshops and other
group activities, Silberstreif sees individual consultation as the only way to
assess accurately clients’ characteristics, skills and needs, and thus fit supporting
measures to the individual. Also notable is the strict division of tasks in the
transfer company. Personal advisers are only involved in counselling and do not
carry out training or qualification. A high level of specialisation and familiarity with
the individual case is thus ensured.
Silberstreif carries out its own research on regional labour markets and
structures its activities in regional ‘job clusters’. These are attempts to identify
precisely the scope and level of local labour market demand. The insights gained
here are then used to inform the respective guidance and counselling measures.
One obstacle to optimising impact is that the transfer service provider is not
involved in drawing up the social plan. This means the provider has no say in the
selection of services offered or in defining the monetary benefits transfer
company members receive. High additional payments above structural short-time
work benefits often create poor incentives for leaving the transfer company, since
prospective employers often offer lower wages than the former employer.
The selection of service providers is a general point of criticism: often, cheap
providers are preferred without assessing the actual quality of the transfer
services offered. Further, problematic points are the highly bureaucratic and time-
consuming processes when applying for public funding and the unwillingness of
companies to devise long-term strategies for human resources development,
generally leading to a purely reactive, situation-driven policy.
The main messages for other organisations facing restructuring are essentially
about potential pitfalls and constraints: client companies, in choosing transfer
service providers, should put providers’ concepts under scrutiny instead of just
securing low costs. Clients should explicitly demand transparency from providers
and quality should be regularly checked and insisted on after the set-up of the
transfer company. As a success factor, the focus on individual counselling and
the advisers’ adaptation to their clients’ social milieu seems to be worth

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