Page 26 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

decision-making and behaviour of displaced workers beyond the short term.
This reflects the likelihood that quality of ‘new’ jobs will be dictated by
experiences over time and after a substantial elapsed period, and only then
will displaced workers also be able to start to reflect on the contributions of
support to their employability;
• generating impact evidence more routinely and cost-effectively by embedding
the need for outcomes and tracking displaced workers in service delivery. A
more effective and robust approach to assessing impact, going well beyond
short-term operational targets, could be built into the procurement of
guidance-related services. This would go a long way to filling this critical
evidence gap, and the scope for this would be considerable where public
funds are involved;
• addressing similar challenges where European level funds and programmes
are also harnessed to support enterprise restructuring, in single employers
and supply chains collectively. Here, existing requirements for project
evaluation and provisions for progress or end of project reports could be
usefully extended to collecting robust impact evidence as well as for
evaluating issues such as added-value. Standardised arrangements would
ensure consistency;
• conducting a specific review to assess what support it is realistic for SMEs to
engage with beyond legal compliance, and how they may best engage with
socially responsible practices in restructuring. Much of the evidence gathered
here relates to larger employers; there is a need to understand better distinct
SME needs, if supplementary support by public agencies here is essential,
and in what circumstances the necessary collaborations are best developed.
The review contributes to raising understanding and awareness of what
socially responsible contributions can be made at local level and the barriers to
be removed, encouraging wider engagement of social partners and public
authorities in taking forward these emerging issues.

20