Page 19 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

motivation, and to sustain capacity which can take advantage of better times.
Direct costs for such measures may be set against savings from severance and
compensation packages.
Job protection will be aided substantially by any existing arrangements
established for flexicurity at the workplace. This will include training and guidance
to enhance transferability in the workforce, based on anticipated changes in work
organisation which can support job security. Prevention is an internally driven
adjustment, but it may also be helped by proactive intervention from public
agencies aimed at supporting retained employment in the short term, measures
where public policy responses are as yet weakly-developed for restructuring
situations across Europe.
Job protection measures may not be able to provide security for all affected by
planned job reductions. Socially responsible practices in restructuring provide
support for those who are eventual casualties, which goes well beyond
compensation for job loss. Here, career guidance mechanisms, combined with
other forms of support, such as continuing training, focus on active support of
employee transition into new work or into education and training. Such guidance
plus methods go well beyond what is often common practice, and are
personalised to adjust to individual needs.
Guidance is not a substitute for vocational retraining and enhancement skills
for those in redundant posts. This plays an important role in optimising chances
of securing other work in the company, or externally where the training is most
likely to be geared to realistic opportunities for re-employment, including
enterprise start-up. The effectiveness of adjustment training requires integrated
guidance support including aptitude and competence assessment, linked to
active and passive measures of job brokerage which require up-to-date and
credible labour market understanding and local relationships with employers and
a wide range of agencies.
Socially responsible internal adjustments might also include pool
arrangements for at risk employees, and other assisted ‘right of return’
arrangements. It is not clear what role early retirement might play in such
arrangements but where this takes place it calls for a range of other guidance
related support geared to life changes as much as employment transitions. In
these circumstances, external adjustments supporting those losing jobs may then
become more of an offer of last rather than first resort to support ‘surplus’ labour.
Socially responsible practices in restructuring place a premium on enterprise
management, and social partnership, which can build structures to anticipate the
consequences of restructuring. This will also establish the ‘right’ mixture for
enterprises’ internal resources and external cooperation. Even with appropriate

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