Page 68 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

simplest would seek to build on these minimum entitlements, and our research
would suggest this is achieved in three main ways.
The first is by enterprises and organisations providing internally-sourced
support to affected employees. This ranges from limited additional short-term
help to, in the most extensive arrangements, more in-depth support available
over extended periods. As for the more extensive in-house arrangements in the
case studies, they are restricted to large and previously robust and successful
companies, which are both able, and willing, to fund this support for a variety of
reasons. SMEs are less able to provide internally facilitated support. Where case
study evidence draws on SME practice, it suggests that this emphasises
compliance and reactive adjustment with little or no supplementary support
unless driven by external facilitation, funding and support.
The second possibility is by enterprises and organisations commissioning
services through public or private sector partners. External supplementary
support seems of particular significance to guidance-related assessment,
counselling, brokerage and associated individual and group level support, driven
by the need to supplement what may be available from in-house resources. The
reasons for engaging other partners may be due to a range of issues, including a
lack of capacity and necessary expertise, or because these services are fully, or
partly, publicly funded.
The third approach is through public sector funded bodies (frequently including
specialist support agencies and PES) when public policy in Member States, or
discretionary local practice, has created proactive ways of offering services to
companies and workforces that require them.
In some examples, continuous business support can also be offered (e.g. in
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the UK via Business Link) ( ) to the business and to develop the residual
workforce. This can be particularly valuable where both a business and
continuing human resource development (HRD) review are needed to ascertain
the training and development needs of the residual workforce, including
identifying both skills gaps and shortages. In this context, the business plan for
the company can frequently be concerned simultaneously with both short-term
survival and, longer-term, with securing new markets for their products and
services. However, in general, it seems the value of support provided to
‘survivors’ (Chapter 2) does not seem to get sufficient appreciation in
restructuring adjustments in Europe.
Each of the adjustment strategies explored through the case studies include
varying levels of career guidance input. However, whereas some approaches
and strategies seek mainly to deal with the consequences of restructuring, others

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( ) See: www.businesslink.gov.uk [cited 6.5.2010].

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