Page 22 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

restricted enterprise engagement and also limited customisation of the support
and after-care services that provide for some continuity after redundancy.
Drawing this together, the review suggests a typology of socially responsible
practice in harnessing careers guidance in restructuring, and where enterprises,
and those working with them, may chose to act in one of four distinct ways:
compliance, compliance plus, cooperative and transitional.
In compliance driven adjustment, the enterprise focus is on ensuring that its
provisions for lay-offs meet national statutory or sectoral requirements. Provision
for displaced workers here is rarely likely to go beyond minimum requirements.
Job protection methods are unlikely to be involved, and internal or external
adjustment will rarely involve guidance-related support. The emphasis will be on
appropriate notification processes and minimum levels of compensation, and any
required referral to public agencies.
Compliance plus adjustment goes further in compensation or support
arrangements for displaced employees but with a continuing focus on ‘assisted
leaving’. Here, the main motive is likely to be not with at-risk employees but on
establishing an environment for the lay-offs which sustain employee motivation
among survivors and good employee relations.
Cooperative arrangements are essentially a community-centred emphasis,
which may combine some aspects of job preservation with assisted leaving.
Cooperative arrangements are not developed in isolation from other local or
regional labour market developments, and involve active intervention, although
usually short-term measures, to support worker transitions. The main emphasis is
skills development services and integrated guidance to those loosing their jobs.
Public sector funding of extended activities is an important ingredient, including
through rapid reaction arrangements, but there may be limited focus on
personalised approaches or delivery.
Transitional adjustment is distinguished from other arrangements by
combining preventive ‘work security’ measures with internal adjustments. Here,
external adjustments of surplus labour are likely to be a last step in restructuring.
Existing arrangements are likely to underpin both the provision made and also
the way in which it is resourced. Various combinations of practice are involved,
with guidance measures and personalisation of services to support vulnerable
workers, as an embedded feature of delivery. The underlying emphasis is not
with assisted leaving but on support of workers to empower their transitions,
within the restructuring enterprise. Measures are likely to be wholly or largely
funded by established local or regional support schemes, publicly funded.

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