Page 24 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

displaced workers. Such collaborations can be newly forged, but work best where
they draw on existing relationships both with the internal labour market of
affected enterprises and the wider local labour market.
A special issue in effective collaboration is the quality and relevance of
effective management information and customer relationship management
systems. Where there are multiple sub-contractors and suppliers of different
guidance-related services, there is a need for harmonised systems to provide for
coherence and responsiveness to displaced workers, and to avoid confusion,
duplication and even contradictory advice being given to the same individuals.
For smaller or medium-sized companies in particular, early integration of
publicly funded support through both mainstream and other services is crucial to
effective adjustment. This applies to mainstream PES services as well as to any
specially developed sectoral or regional rapid reaction arrangements drawing
together supplementary career guidance and related services. Effectiveness
here, however, depends on the capacity, focus and flexibility of such
arrangements which may not support socially responsible adjustment by
enterprises well, particularly where PES services have limited capacity or focus
support on people already unemployed.
The effectiveness of career guidance and related interventions is increased
where this is of a longer duration and where those affected have the opportunity
for continuity of support. For example, there are novel and longer duration ‘pool’
arrangements for some enterprises (Sweden and Finland) which are seen to be
highly effective in securing sustainable re-employment, and some of the German
transfer companies make provision for those supported to be able to return to the
available services after re-employment. In addition, those who benefit from such
arrangements over a longer timeframe are able to use this interval better to
inform their choices about securing more sustainable work.
A key issue for effective strategies is the anticipation of likely future needs for
guidance and associated services to support socially responsible practice. At
present, arrangements for career guidance related support remain an uncommon
feature. The specific needs for guidance of employees consequently risk being
ignored when redundancy situations arise. Effective practice seems to call for
direct action by social partners in this area as in the case of the Scandinavian
and German case studies but rarely elsewhere.
This research can only go so far in assessing the effectiveness of any of those
arrangements, or individual measures. In particular, the case study research
cautions that, very little is known of the quality of different support arrangements
beyond very short-term outcomes; the quality and depth of impact evidence is
limited. The available short-term evidence suggests that outplacement support

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