Page 29 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

studies were reviewed by the restructuring enterprises and public agencies
concerned, and discussed in a wider peer review by selected agencies and
experts who critically considered emerging findings and implications. In the end,
16 examples of services supporting redundant workers are included in this report,
as an illustration of better practice of socially responsible restructuring.
In addition, the review has also engaged with selected communities of
practice, and specifically the European lifelong guidance policy network (ELGPN)
where national representatives in Member States were asked to provide any
separate reflections on innovation and practice, and also informally, the
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European Employment Observatory. Semi-structured discussions ( ) were
conducted with selected key experts, including representatives of the European
Commission and its expert centres, where there has been direct engagement in
research relevant to this review (Cedefop, EuroFound, ETF) as well as
representatives of social partners (European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC)
and Business Europe, and key professional networks, such as the European
Association for People Management (EAPM) on HR issues, and the International
Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG).
Drop-out amongst the proposed case studies proved a major constraint, with
only just over a third of the initially identified enterprises being willing to
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participate in attributable case studies to inform the review ( ). In contrast, only
one of the local intervention mechanisms that support restructuring processes in
enterprises declined to take part. This high level of drop-out among enterprises,
in their willingness to share experience, seems to centre on what managers in
those organisations saw as the extreme sensitivity of the subject matter, and the
need to manage risks associated with brand image.
In the process, the withdrawal of several proposed case studies meant that no
available experience was tapped in five Member States and EEC countries, and
specifically in Bulgaria, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal, but
additional cases were identified in Latvia and Finland. The case study focuses on
examples of enterprise and partnership-led innovation and better practice in a
small sample of European economies, identified from early national review and
secondary research. The sample comprises both mature and more recent
restructuring arrangements, from larger economies such as Germany and the
UK, and smaller economies such as Ireland, as well as from mature market
economies as in Sweden and those of central Europe, such as Latvia and
Slovakia. To support the wider transferability of the findings, the selection of case

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( ) Interviews involved a mixture of face-to-face, telephone, and supplementary e-mail contacts.
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( ) One of the final case studies, which had initially agreed to participate, subsequently requested
its information be used only on a non-attributable basis.

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