Page 37 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

tools, counselling interviews, career education programmes (to help individuals
develop their self-awareness, opportunity-awareness, and career management
skills), taster programmes (to sample options before choosing them), work
search programmes, and transition services’ (OECD, 2004). The learning
outcomes of guidance are defined as ‘the skills, knowledge and attitudes which
facilitate informed and rational occupational and educational decision-making,
and the implementation and educational decisions’ (Killeen and Kidd, 1991).
More recently, there has been a developing European focus on guidance in
relation to lifelong learning. At European level, Council Resolutions (Council of
the EU, 2004 and 2008) established policy links between enhanced guidance
provision and empowering individuals to manage their own career paths, in
changing and volatile labour markets. Nonetheless, little research has considered
guidance in the context of workplace related practice and even less in
restructuring contexts. Against this background, the focus of this review remains
unique. Guidance support within restructuring enterprises is likely to be subject to
contrasting national regulatory frameworks, as well as very different career
guidance capacity in the public and private sector. In supporting those who have
been, or are likely to be, made redundant, a range of career guidance
interventions and training are potentially available and might include:
(a) individual career counselling and guidance including the possible use of
psychometric and other assessment tools, such as mapping available skills;
(b) support and training, including personal development, upskilling, upgrading
occupational knowledge, and acquiring transition skills linked to labour
market search;
(c) access to alternative employment through job fairs and job placement, as
well as coaching and other support whilst individuals are in transition.
A comparative study on public employment services (PES) and career
guidance services for adults (Sultana and Watts, 2005) emphasised the potential
role of PES-based career guidance in supporting restructuring related
displacement of workers. It acknowledged that services actually available were
‘narrowly focused on the unemployed’ and not those at risk of unemployment or
protracted job search. Another comparative study by the European Commission
explored in 30 countries the role of PES in the development of ‘flexicurity’
interventions (European Commission, 2009c). PES could support employment
security by ensuring timely transitions between jobs, through cooperation with
employers in advance of redundancy. In practice, however, the 2009 review
found multiple pressures on PES delivery and an emphasis on reactive rather
than preventive services in those circumstances.

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