Page 90 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

providing a dedicated and secure website for the redundant workers, where they
can access supportive resources including vacancies, information on access to
training and even online advice and counselling.
In the UK, there are no transfer companies as such, but extensive use is made
of ‘outplacement companies’. These carry out a similar role, though it tends to be
less intensive and much more part of a collaborative package of measures used,
often combining the company’s own resources and those of the public sector
agencies and careers advisory services (known by different names in different
parts of the country). This gives rise to one of the significant features of the
approach in the UK, which is the generally high level of collaboration between the
agencies in delivering the support package. In the GKN case study, bringing
together the company’s own HR services with the specialist outplacement
company, funded by the employer and Jobcentre Plus, the locally-based PES,
was organised on a clear delineation of activities. The PES provided vacancy and
benefit advice, the outplacement company delivered job preparation training and
careers advice, and the company itself scored the individuals identified for
redundancy. This functional mix and collaboration appears to work well in
supporting displaced employees. This company also had access to a regional
support framework, principally funded through the ESF. This complemented the
other activities in providing funding for training and retraining that would not
normally be available through mainstream funding sources: these are often linked
to formal qualifications, can be inflexible in enrolments and start-dates within
local providers, and can span too long a period. Similar support was also
marshalled across restructuring enterprises – of all sizes – through the Better
West Midlands rapid response programme. This kind of largely reactive regional
support is becoming a common feature of the support available in the UK, though
it is not uniform throughout the country.
In PACE, the support example is in Scotland and was dealing with a medium-
sized company with limited resources to provide a comprehensive service to its
displaced employees. The emphasis was on coordinating activities and early
introduction of support services on site. This helped inform the workers of their
options and dispel myths about what they might or might not be entitled to; it also
contributed to a general lift in morale among the whole workforce at a difficult
time. In another example, the East of England Development Agency, the regional
support framework has been available for some time. However, there have been
recent efforts to make it more widely know in recognition of its success and this
has included media promotional activities and employer workshops on managing
restructuring. The support given has an emphasis on flexibility and, without
significant restrictions in terms of timing, allowing the displaced employees time

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