Page 83 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

employees can find alternative work (or other activity) without the need to seek
assistance and this is reflected in some of the other case studies. However,
overall usage was relatively high in the case of GKN in the UK, where only 8% of
those being made redundant chose not to take up the support available (Case
study 4). Reluctance to take up the individual support offered was even more
pronounced in the Latvian case study where employees failed to embrace the
group support activities on offer and the psychological sessions were also poorly
attended. It is difficult to relate this to the eventual outcomes experienced by the
displaced workers and the choice of whether or not to use the support will be
influenced by the state of the labour market and availability of alternative jobs
and how easily they can be filled by the displaced employees. It was evident that
re-employment outcomes had fallen in the current recession, forcing more
employees to use the careers advice available to them.
Related to the provision of individual support was the effectiveness in the use
of group sessions where employees were given careers support collectively,
though with some variations between case studies. In some of the UK cases, the
group sessions were introduced at the start of the support process in the
interests of providing general information on what individual support was
available and how it could be accessed. Success here was not only measured by
the subsequent take-up of individual support, but also by the timing. These
events had to be held as soon as possible in the redundancy consultation period
because previous experience indicated it was essential to support employees as
much as possible before they left their employer and moved physically off site.
However, the use of group sessions went a stage further in some cases. In
Siemens (Germany), the use of advice and counselling in peer review format
proved effective in sharing problems and concerns and also ideas and advice on
employment and training opportunities in the wider labour market (Case study 8).
The value of employer networks in identifying job vacancies is an important
finding from the case studies. Conventional thinking would tend to suggest that
the PES provides the main route for vacancy information and, while this remains
an important route, it operates alongside effective employer based methods of
identifying vacancies. In the case of BenQ Mobile (Germany), there was heavy
use of jobs fairs to attract employers with vacancies to one place. Using the
relevant employers’ association gave access to around 10 000 vacancies and
this contributed to over 90% of the displaced employees finding jobs, mostly
permanent ones (Case study 2). Anglesey Aluminium in the UK invited employers
from a range of sectors, not just its own, to come to the site and interview the
workers facing redundancy and this proved popular, even attracting overseas
firms, resulting in substantial re-employment (Case study 11).

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