Page 75 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

restructuring is that the cooperation needs to be adaptable and customised to
specific needs and circumstances.

4.3. Cooperation with PES

The European Commission’s report (Sultana and Watts, 2005) Career Guidance
in Europe’s Public Employment Services (PES) indicated that most have not yet
developed a specific provision for the employed, or for employees who are soon
to be laid off.
Experience with PES seems to vary within the case studies covered by the
present review. Overall, interviewees during the case study research stressed
that both the cooperation and the quality of PES services themselves had
improved over the last decade, especially in work with companies that are
restructuring. However, this experience is not universal. For example, the
effectiveness and competence of PES advisers was questioned by some,
including the concern that counselling is often too superficial and reflects
advisers’ lack of familiarity with specific sectors. Concern was also raised about
contradictory advice, when PES advisers pointed clients in a completely different
direction to that given in internal guidance activities. The slow reaction of
employment agencies to changes in labour market demand, in terms of adjusting
their planned qualification programmes, was also pointed out.
Cooperation between companies and public employment services are a way
forward in terms of building better understanding of companies, sector demands
and labour market changes, as in the exchange programme that Siemens BeE
have established, where employees from the Labour Agency work there for six
months to get to know the work of the transfer company (Case study 8).
Less feedback was received from other case studies regarding work with their
respective PES. In one instance in Slovakia, the restructuring of EnergoMont
(EM), all activities of the outplacement programme (excluding consultations with
the company lawyer) were provided by specialists of the local labour office in
Trnava; no other sub-contractors were involved in outplacement programmes
(Case study 3).

4.4. National and European capacity development

The use of national or localised development funding from European funds
cannot be isolated. A common feature of regional support is the harnessing of

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