Page 93 - Socially-responsible-restructuring-Effective-strategies-for-supporting-redundant-workers

Socially responsible restructuring
Effective strategies for supporting redundant workers

On the available evidence, the larger and longer established employers are
more likely to provide more extensive career guidance support to displaced
workers, but still the depth and breadth of provision may be patchy. The provision
seems to be directly related to some aspects of organisational maturity;
examples include human resource management capabilities, external
partnerships and social dialogue structures. However, other aspects of
organisational maturity not linked to management or employee relations
structures may also be involved, such as past experience in managing the
workforce adjustment consequences of change.
For some, past experience of change management was frequent and
extensive. GKN has been restructuring its operations in the UK for many years
and since 2002 has gradually reduced employment at its three sites in one part of
the West Midlands region from 3 500 to around 500. In Volvo in Sweden the
same experience applies, though the scale of the recent job losses at over 4 000
have been unprecedented for this company. New logistical problems – not least
how such major changes will affect local communities – had to be addressed.
This case is probably the most robust example within this review of a situation
where an employer has considered the wider implications of job losses and
extended its practice of ‘social responsibility’ well beyond the boundaries set by
the direct concern for workers, although elements of this are also evident in the
Teliasonera. It could be argued that employers should adopt these wider
perspectives and, in an ideal situation, this may be correct.
A further feature of enterprise maturity seems to be the extent to which it
understands or has developed the ability to work in partnership with other public
and private sector bodies, including in providing for, or enhancing, career
guidance support. This has been explored more fully in the previous chapter,
where this emerges as a crucial ingredient of effective adjustment in a variety of
enterprise restructuring and national contexts, most notably in the quality of
cooperation with PES. On this evidence, it seems that a crucial success factor for
restructuring adjustment to harness career guidance for the benefit of displaced
workers is past organisational experience of medium or larger scale job losses,
or of collaboration with related external services.

5.5. Better practice and transferability

In assessing the transferability of the career guidance practices in restructuring
situations, there are many factors to consider. These include the labour market
policy environment, the institutional structure and context (including consideration

87