Page 54 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

(a) to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes which will help increase their
chances of finding and keeping a job (including increasing their basic skills,
job-search skills, and upskilling where required);
(b) to acquire the knowledge skills and attitudes which will help them to cope
with being unemployed;
(c) to understand the extent to which responsibility for unemployment lies with
society rather than the individual and to explore forms of social, political and
community action related to unemployment;
(d) to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes that will help them to make the
best use of their increased ‘leisure’ time;
(e) to acquire the skills to become self-employed and to be aware of self-
sustaining lifestyles.
The authors conclude that any attempt to meet the educational needs of the
unemployed has to ‘recognise that they are an extremely diverse group … they
share only one objective characteristic – the fact that they do not have a job’ (p.
1).
Less well-recognised in restructuring situations are the effects on employees
retained by companies, often referred to in the literature as ‘survivors’. Wolfe
(2004) has argued that, despite a lack of empirical evidence, there seems to be
little doubt from company-based studies that there is a ‘survivor syndrome’
amongst those who were not selected for redundancy, but fear they may be in
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future. Pugh, Skarlicki and Passell (2003) found in a small-scale study ( ) that
violation of the psychological contract by a former employer was negatively
related to trust in the new employer, and positively related to employee cynicism.

2.7. The research challenge: innovation and
effectiveness

This chapter has set out the backcloth for the review and has suggested that,
notwithstanding some contradictory evidence on the short-term effects of
enterprise restructuring on employment, there is a recognised need for
restructuring situations to be managed in a dynamic and socially responsible way
to minimise negative effects. Embedding career guidance for displaced and at
risk workers in adjustment arrangements is potentially important, both as a stand-

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( ) This centred on 141 individuals, with the author cautioning on the limited scale and lack of
cross-sectional effects.

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