Page 92 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

statutory requirement in Sweden, during which they have significant flexibility on
what they want to do, since they are not required to undertake their normal jobs.
Other, more subtle, approaches to delivering support include BenQ Mobile in
Germany, which found the use of peer group discussions very effective as they
provided a wider forum for sharing concerns and widening perspectives on the
options available. In Anglesey Aluminium there was considerable interest in the
self-employment option and so the company was able to offer some protected
workshops on site at no cost to enable some employees to test out their business
ideas.

Peer group discussions

In BenQ Mobile (DE), group discussions among the displaced staff have been introduced as part of
the support programme. The aim is for employees to share concerns and discuss options in a
collective way, facilitated by experienced counsellors. According to the provider they are rated very
highly by the participants, giving them a forum for discussing aspirations and bringing a sense of
perspective to their situation. However, key to the success of the discussions is to involve only
those employees with similar qualifications and jobs.

Source: Case study 2.

5.4. Better practice and organisational maturity

Information on the efficacy of the various approaches is hard to come by and
variation in the policies adopted, differing in detail and in context, make drawing
conclusions problematic. It may be more appropriate to consider extracting some
of the more common ingredients from the case studies that provide a basis for
determining better practice. However, as a starting point the question could be
posed: do employers in general take responsibility for providing support to
employees displaced by their restructuring? There is no straightforward answer.
In the case studies in Germany, Finland, Sweden and the UK, employers
generally do fulfil an obligation to provide support, though this varies considerably
in its nature and scope. However, in the example from Slovakia, the provision of
anything above the statutory requirement of, for example, redundancy payment
appears to be atypical, with the exception of the case study company providing
some careers support in collaboration with the PES. Here, this seems to be
related as much to issues of institutional maturity, echoed also in the Bulgarian
situation (where no appropriate innovation case study could be identified), as to
enterprise development and maturity.

86