How to get redundancies right

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good afternoon everybody i'm going to kick us off because it is half past 12. my name is katie jacobs from the cipd
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i've been hosting our coronavirus series of webinars and this afternoon we are looking at a
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topic that isn't particularly cheerful but is so important and timely in the current climate and that's redundancies
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we've seen so many headlines over the last few weeks of large organizations making mass redundancies due to the economic
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impact of the coronavirus pandemic and sadly data suggests this is only the start of a significant economic downturn
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with many more job losses to come joining me this afternoon to discuss
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this topic where we're going to look at things like covering alternatives to job cuts
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exploring how to approach redundancies compassion and providing advice on how to comply with legal obligations
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i'm joined by a brilliant panel of experts we've got rachel suff rachel is senior policy advisor on
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employee relations at the cipd we're joined by matt rames cole an employment law consultant at krona
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and dr madeleine petzer senior lecturer in hrm at liverpool john moores university
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thank you very much all of you for giving up your time and expertise this afternoon um as ever i'm just going to run through
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the housekeeping notes very quickly this session is being recorded you will be able to access it afterwards on
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demand and we'll also be making slides available so you will be able to download those from this afternoon or tomorrow um to
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submit questions and we would encourage you to do so during the webinar then please use the q
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a tab which you should be able to see at the bottom of your screen please use a q a tab for any questions
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that you want me to put to the panel um but use the chat function to speak to and connect with each other
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and when it comes to questions we can't really take any individual complex legal queries but a
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reminder that for legal advice on this topic and others cipd members can call our hr inform
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helpline it's available 24 7 and you will get an individual response by doing that
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so it might be better to phone off that now you might be better off phoning the employment law helpline for some advice
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if your question is particularly long and complex because we probably won't be able to address it here remember that the cibd coronavirus hub
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is there as a resource and that we're adding things to it all the time and my colleagues going to post some of the new resources that are
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relevant to this topic in the chat as we go and finally i want to flag our wellbeing
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helpline which is available for members in the uk and ireland with award-winning workplace well-being
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provider health assured we're now providing cipd members with free help and support via sessions with qualified therapists
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online or over the phone um we know that running redundancy programs can really take its toll
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and that a lot of people are feeling the pressure right now so please do remember to look after yourselves and that um line is there for you if you
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need it so on to the topic at hand the kobit 19
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pandemic has caused significant disruption to businesses with some sectors being forced to shut down entirely and subsequent economic
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crisis has led many organizations to consider redundancies as their only option and every day we see news about new
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large firms making redundancies today it's the pub chain marstons which has announced it's
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losing over two thousand jobs the cipd summer labor market outlook found that 33 percent of organizations
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expected to cut jobs in the third quarter of 2020 and a cipd employee survey in july found
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that 40 of furloughed workers thought it was likely they were going to lose their job in the next 12 months and now in
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addition to the devastating impact on those directly affected we know redundancies have a really negative impact across the entire
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workforce including on those having to make them so how can leaders and people professionals take a humane and
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compassionate approach to job losses as well as ensuring that they comply with their legal responsibilities
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what are the alternatives to redundancies that need to be considered first and how can we limit the psychological
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impact on those left behind so that's the kind of things we're going to be talking about today
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our running order first up rachel's going to set the context and she's going to talk about mitigating some of the negative impacts of
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redundancies and particularly focusing on supporting health and well-being through the process then matt is going
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to take us through the legal do's and don'ts and everything we need to know on that and finally maddie will talk us
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to talk to us about her research on the impact of redundancies on victims on survivors and on
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redundancy invoice so there's having to to deal with the process and she's also going to discuss how we
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can mitigate some of those more negative effects and then we're going to take questions i'd encourage you to just put your
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questions in as soon as they come to you rather than waiting until the end and we'll pick them up in the q
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a section that's it for me for now i'm going to hand over to rachel to kick us off thanks rachel thank you
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and hello everybody thanks for joining us as katie said we've seen an increasing
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amount of commentary in the news and elsewhere about redundancies and large scale job loss
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some have already happened of course this week we had figures uh official official figures from
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government ons showing that redundancies rose to their highest level
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in over a decade the last quarter over a quarter of a million people made redundant and
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that was double the previous quarter obviously the furlough scheme the original furlough scheme hasn't ended
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yet so this is only the start of the story there will be more redundancies to come
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now it goes without saying as everybody's aware here that it's incredibly important that
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employers comply with the law when carrying out redundancies and i and i know that uh actually not
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everybody is aware of that across the economy acas published research last week showing that a
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quarter of employers weren't aware of the law around consulting employees
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before making redundancy so it isn't a given for every organization but i also want to highlight here how
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handling redundancies in a humane and compassionate way and going beyond the law
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should go hand in hand with compliance can i have the next slide please danielle first of all a brief
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snapshot katie's already mentioned our labour market outlook and this shows intentions around
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redundancies on the part of employers and a third intended to make redundancies up to the
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end of september now redundancies were likely to affect the whole economy
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but as you'd expect some sectors were impacted harder than others i.t manufacturing transport and
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hospitality were the hardest hit it's important to note though there's a lot of uncertainty
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still around the full scope and scale of redundancies we don't know how that picture will
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fully play out yet because these are really turbulent times it's a rapidly changing situation for
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most organizations it's clear that the jobs market is going to shrink but the full
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extent isn't yet clear and i think it's quite significant that in this labor market outlook
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a lot of employers were unable to predict exactly how many or if they'd be making
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redundancies so that uncertainty continues for now
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just briefly on the employee perspective because we are we have also been asking employees about their experiences and
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insights and so on and our most recent survey shows that around a fifth
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so 20 of employees think they will lose their job over the coming months
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the majority of those think they'll find it really difficult to find another job so that's quite a factor at the moment i
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think in the current labor market next slide please now alternatives to redundancy of course
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redundancy should be a very last resort and employers actually have a duty to consider
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alternatives so it's very encouraging that in our labor market outlook many employers are looking at a
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whole variety of different ways to mitigate or stave off redundancies
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i've just put some of the key options the most popular approaches here first of all recruitment freezes a lot
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looking at that and then wage flexibility so this could be pay freezes pay cuts bonus cuts
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these kind of cutbacks for people's pay will never be popular of course but if
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they're communicated well if it's really spelt out what the necessity is that the alternative
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could be to lose jobs or lose more jobs they could be a lot more palatable also looking at
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new or more flexible working arrangements like job share career breaks and so on
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consulting with your workforce around those they're quite popular stop in agency and
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temporary worker contracts and then we have short time working i remember in the last recession some of
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the professional services firms used this kind of approach to good effect in terms of staving off
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redundancies it can be a temporary approach when business improves
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you can go back to full-time working and obviously it's really important to consult
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with people around contractual obligations if you're looking at that as an alternative and then training budgets these are
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always a first option for many organizations when they're looking to make
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cost reductions now not on this slide was also the furlough scheme and using
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the furlough scheme now the original furlough scheme is no longer an option but there are replacements and it's
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really important to consider the kind of government assistance that's available for business when you're looking at alternatives to
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redundancy so we've got the job support scheme which offers a wage subsidy for hours
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not worked under a short-term working arrangement there is an extension to that scheme as
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well where businesses have to close legally because of severe restrictions
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in that locality and under that scheme government will pay two-thirds of the wages where the where the
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business has to close there's also a job retention bonus so quite a lot of different areas to look
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at and uh government assistance can i have the next slide
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so making redundancy doing code with 19 even if an organization does their very
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best to avoid job losses it's clear many organizations are going to have to make some very tough
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decisions in the coming months and will be unable to avoid making redundancies this is a really
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hard undertaking we really appreciate that and it's very challenging in particular
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for the people who'll be carrying out that process and breaking the news to people so hr and managers
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in the current context where we've got the health pandemic that's been running now from for many
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months with no end point in sight and the worse in an economic crisis
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the timing for people couldn't be more unfortunate for many people their health has already
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been compromised and levels of resilience could be at a lower
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cipd has been surveying employees and around a third said their physical
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health has worsened since the start of the pandemic and even more so that their mental health are
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deteriorated obviously given the rise in unemployment many will worry about their ability to
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find another job in the current climate so it's a very challenging situation next slide
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thanks so ensuring compassion supporting people's health and well-being can be more important as a key
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theme it means treating people with dignity respect and kindness this couldn't be more
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important because the frame of mind with which people leave the organization and approach their future will be really
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influenced by how they were treated throughout a redundancy program and just pause for a moment because what does
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compassion mean it's not a fluffy concept yes it does mean being kind it means
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having empathy it means trying to put yourself in the other person's shoes and trying to understand how they feel
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and treating them in a humane way but it goes further than that it means being prepared in a workplace
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to act on somebody's situation now in a redundancy program that doesn't
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mean not making redundancies necessarily at all but what it does mean is the
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organization taking a number of steps to improve how the process is carried
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out which will impact how people come to terms with it how they react
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and how they leave the organization and the state of their well-being
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i know that i'm preaching to the converted here that everybody will be on board with that aim but i think at the same
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time it is such a difficult challenging process it can be a temptation to get it over with as
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quickly as possible at the same time you don't want to drag it out for ages unnecessarily
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so it's finding the right balance with the timing but it's very important especially with
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a lot of consultation perhaps taking place remotely that there is enough time built into the
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process to take out to carry out genuine consultation with people
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and work in those logistics that are needed so and i've just highlighted some of the
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key areas to take on board because also even though hr can have the
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best intentions when they're overseeing a redundancy program it's really about how you embed those
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intentions more widely across the organization in terms of how line managers behave and
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treat people throughout redundancy situation as well
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so second bullet point communicate regularly communication is so crucial doing a
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redundancy process and it's also the tone of how you communicate as well as
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the content so it does mean being clear sincere transparent and bringing that
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compassion into the process how the news is broken the words that are chosen are really
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important in terms of influencing how people receive that news and in a vacuum of communication that is
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when the rumor mill will step in it's very hard if you're on the receiving end
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not to take news that you're in in a redundancy pool or be made redundancy
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being made redundant in a personal way so important to emphasize it was a very
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hard business decision it's in no way a reflection of that person that individual or their
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performance take the time to explain the reasons behind that business decision
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there it really was a last resort and then the third bullet line managers they are very likely to be
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the first poor to call with concerns with people's worries about what's going to happen next
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how it's affecting them and we know at cipd from research we carry out that
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line managers many typically find it quite hard to have those challenging
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conversations and deal with personal situations and obviously a lot of people are going
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to experience the whole range of emotions if they are told that they're in a redundancy pool
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so it is a very challenging task for managers and a cause for hr and it can have a
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real effect on the well-being of those breaking the news and being responsible and dealing
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with people's concerns so line managers need the practical support and guidance in terms of what they should say
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how they should say it they need to have the information to hand but also they will need to have access
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to support in terms of their own health and well-being as well and then on the fourth bullet
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ongoing health and well-being support it can have a really detrimental impact
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on people's mental health that news that you're being made redundant regardless of somebody's
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previous health history and their level of resilience especially at the moment so all the
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while through the process there needs to be on hand clear sign posting and support
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for people's health and well-being and line managers as well need to know how to sign post people occupational health
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also an employee assistance program could give a whole range of support and some employee assistance programs
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also offer continued support for people up to three months after people have
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left the organization so it's really worth finding out if that is available if you do have an employee
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assistance program and also the kind of practical support that you provide
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haven't got time to go into in detail here but out placement the level of someone's employability
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confidence in finding future work will have a big impact as well on their health and well-being
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and last but certainly not least be mindful of the impact on the wider workforce
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it can be such an unsettling experience seeing friends and colleagues laid off and obviously the worries about
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people's own job security of those left behind i mean it is called survivor syndrome for for a good reason
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so the wider morale of the workforce is very much at stake and how you treated people as an
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organization doing that process will be remembered it will leave a lasting legacy
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to just to sum up there needs to be vision for the future as part of your planning as well it doesn't just end
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with people being made redundant there has to be a vision going forward so the organization can move forward
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people know need to know how they fit into that vision going forward as well compliance and
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compassion do go hand in hand they should go hand in hand
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and it is possible to do redundancy well you might not be able to change the final outcome of having to
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make redundancies but if people leave the organization knowing that they were treated fairly
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with respect that they've been supported as well as they could have been throughout the process
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they will be able to move on hopefully and so will the organization thank you thank you so much rachel for
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that um brilliant overview um really great kick off um thanks people for putting your
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questions in do keep those coming in i'll pick them up at the um at the end we've heard from all the speakers so i'd like to hand over to
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matt now matt is going to take us through the legal considerations um of making redundancies
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over to you matt thanks katie and thanks rachel as well we touched on a number of points really there that are
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sort of crucial through the legal process as well um so to talk through um sort of the the
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legalities underpinning a number of the points that you've made um so i've actually been at cronin
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myself for 13 years now so i joined not long before the um financial crash
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back in 2007 and sort of following through to 2008 in terms of redundancies then
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um obviously redundancy and restructures are an ongoing consideration in a number of businesses
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but clearly at the moment to use a pretty worn out word at the moment for an unprecedented times
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um and obviously businesses are facing this as a another extreme situation you know
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never before really if so many businesses found so much has just dropped off the cliff um in terms of a redundancy situation
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um what that's sort of manifesting itself in in in lots of the conversations that we're having as an organization with our clients is that
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businesses are are needing to do things uh very quickly and feeling a pressure um in order to do
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so um which from a legal point of view you can sort of run into a bit of a a brick wall uh when the law comes into
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it because there are still some requirements obviously that needs to be met legally um in order to ensure
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that we're doing things correctly and compliantly um but at the same time sort of trying
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to to maintain and deal with that business pressure and so it's a case of balancing those two um but ensuring ultimately obviously
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that we're compliant uh legally as well and can be onto the next slide please donate
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so ultimately what employers are really looking at trying to uh to demonstrate to a tribunal really
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which is uh ultimately sort of worst case scenario as far as employment law is concerned um is that
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they've actually followed a a fair process um from embarking on the beginning of the redundancy process
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to actually the end of that and serving notice on individuals and terminating their employment by reason
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of redundancy and there's a number of steps really that you have to follow through as you're working through that process
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overall really referred to as the consultation process but there are aspects and things that
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need to be given consideration before you actually um start through the consultation process itself
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so as rachel's already alluded to considering alternatives to redundancy it should really be a last resort from
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business point of view um having a clear rationale an explanation of the reasons for the potential redundancy
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um is surprising sometimes in conversations that we have with clients just how unclear they can be
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as to exactly what the issue is within their business that they're having to consider redundancies as a result of
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or how they sort of take that business need and translate that through their structure in terms of what they've got at the moment
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and the structure that they believe that they need to get to and there's quite a number of conversations that our consultants will have with clients where
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um we're just trying to get them to to fully sort of thrash that out and understand exactly you know basically where they're coming
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from and where they need to get to in terms of their business and that's the cornerstone really for the redundancy process because
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this is your your starting point for the redundancy in terms of your explanation and this is you know the foundation on
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which consultation is going to be built um we also need to identify the correct pool of those who are at risk of
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redundancy so we need to really be looking at again back to the rationale
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what's the issue that we're addressing where's the reduction if that's the case in terms of the work that we need to
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cover or where we're needing to make a restructure it's those really that we're looking for those that are doing that type of work
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so it's not just certain individuals and redundancy is always about the job not the individuals in that job to begin
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with in terms of your overall approach to it um we obviously need to advise those
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relevant employees of the possibility of redundancy which we generally refer to as placing them at risk of redundancy
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and so that they're clear on what the situation is again this comes back to the rationale
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and then advising them in terms of the process that you'll be following from there undertaking sufficient meaningful
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consultation so really this is looking the overall aim here is is we're really under an obligation if we
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can to try and avoid redundancy so the purpose of consultation in essence is to give the
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those that are potentially at risk the opportunity to raise any counter proposals any ideas
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any suggestions that they've got and for us as the employer to take those on board
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consider those if we can adopt them fantastic but if we're unable to or it's not quite
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going to to make the business need or resolve that business need and
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then we need to be explaining that back to the individuals and obviously our explanations need to
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be reasonable and objective obviously as part of that as well we need to be looking for alternative roles within the
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organisation or any associated businesses that we may have to see if we can find um jobs for those
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who are at risk and have ultimately been selected again as an alternative to to actually making them redundant
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and then in the midst of that as well we need to be applying a proper selection process so if we have a pool of 10 individuals
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and we need to make four of them redundant obviously we need to work our way through and ensure that we have a fair
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and objective way of assessing which of those uh 10 have been selected for redundancy and
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really we should be giving the those that are affected the opportunity to look at that criteria as well before we apply it
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and so that they can feed into that not necessarily so that it's agreed um although agreement would be fantastic
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um everybody always has um sort of competing ideas as to what should go in there based on their own personal circumstances
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um but we do need to be ensuring that we are um we are sort of consulting with that and ensuring that it's as it's
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as fair as it can possibly be okay next slide please danielle
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so i mentioned um consultation um and what we're looking for is effective
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and meaningful consultation that's a requirement in any redundancy
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exercise regardless of the number of those that we are proposing to dismiss
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and proposing to dismiss here means those that are going to potentially lose their existing roles it isn't just those
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that are dismissed who leave the business at the end of the process we're looking at really how many roles
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are being removed completely from the organization or where a role is being
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substantially changed into something else that is in effect a new role the number is quite important
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because the legislation kicks in here and draws a distinction where we are proposing to dismiss
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20 or more employees at a single establishment within a 90-day period and
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if that is the case then we're obliged to enter into collective consultation now we refer to
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collective consultation and individual consultation really to just draw a distinction between those two processes
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so where we have 20 or more we have to go into collective consultation but we then also have to follow that up
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with individual consultation as well and collective consultation means that we are at the beginning of the process
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going to need to work through certain things and we're going to be consulting with
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representatives initially before then moving on to consulting with those individuals
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individual consultation on the other hand we would normally put people at risk in the first meeting um we'd normally do
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that in groups and then we'd follow up individually with individuals from there so the collective side of it has a bit more of
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a formality to it as well next slide please daniel so just looking at that in a little bit
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more detail so individual consultation we have no set time limit and what we're looking to demonstrate
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though is that we've had meaningful and effective consultation so we're going to place individuals at risk we're going to talk through
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what the business cases and and the issue that the business is facing what the proposal therefore is in terms
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of them being at risk of redundancy um normally as i say that would be with the whole group
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and then we would follow up with individuals from there we'd give them the opportunity to take
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away the proposal consider it feedback to us with any counter proposals or ideas
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again we'd give them the opportunity if we can to review the selection criteria the blank criteria that we propose to
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use and get feedback on that and then we need to give the individuals time rachel touched on this a couple of
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times but we need to give the individuals time to consider what we're actually um talking to them about
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potentially it's come as a bit of a shock although perhaps less so at the moment given that everyone can potentially see
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that you know the business is struggling quite obviously but we still need to give them chance to sort of absorb it consider it
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and then come back to us with any counter proposals and again when they do we then need to consider those proposals
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and feedback from there as i've mentioned before um ideally we do that then we'd apply the scoring criteria and those that are
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selected and we follow up with we look at whether there's any alternative roles that are available and then ultimately if nothing can be
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found there'd be an end to the process at which we we serve notice through a more formal meeting
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collective redundancy consultation on the other hand has much more um prescribed in terms of how you have
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to go about it so there's minimum time limits for the consultation process to run for
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30 days if you've got 20 or more or 45 days if you've got 100 or more
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and that time limit runs from the beginning of the consultation process before you then serve notice on those
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that have ultimately been selected for redundancy and you're going to be consulting with either elected representatives there is
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a slight typo that i've just noticed on the slide here and so it's elected representatives or trade unions where recognized
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and there is also a third category as well where you may have an existing body in place for these
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purposes although my experience that's pretty rare normally it's going to be trade unions or elected reps at the time
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again there's certain requirements in terms of how we get those representatives elected and the certain information that we have
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to provide to them to kick off the um the consultation process as well
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immediately before that as well we need to submit what's referred to as the hr one form and which goes into the government to
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notify them of the fact that we are considering um what we all sort of refer to as larger scale
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redundancies so that we have got 20 or more that we're proposing to dismiss at an establishment within 90 days
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and that hr one form the information on that form also has to be given to the representatives of that first meeting as
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well um next slide please danielle and so just looking at some of the common pitfalls around this i mean there's a
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lot to take in and there's a lot of aspects to a redundancy process it's difficult to cover off the sort of
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the full process uh within a session along these lines um you know when we're sort of looking with
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new advisors to ensure they're up to speed you know these are quite chunky training sessions that we go through to make sure that they understand
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everything and but in terms of sort of the common pitfalls that we tend to come across i'd already touched on the first one which
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is a a lack of clarity on the rationale or what we're proposing um a process can go very pear-shaped
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very quickly from a legal point of view if we're not clear on what we're trying to do and trying to achieve it can make conversations effectively
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meaningless if people don't really understand what's happening or what the situation is and it really is the foundation for your
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whole consultation process incorrectly identifying the pool for selection um ultimately a tribunal wants
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to see that you've sort of reasonably come to a conclusion on on who should be in that pool
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um so it is something that does need to have consideration given to it and it may not just necessarily be those
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obvious cases or those obvious candidates that we've got in mind prejudging the consultation process
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[Music] as far as redundancy consultation is concerned the aim is to try and avoid
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redundancies so as part of that we obviously need to understand and see if there's any
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alternatives that the individuals can raise um what can cause a real issue is if we've already decided that actually we
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know who's going and we know how many and everything else chances are we probably have a pretty good idea of that we have to be very
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careful that we don't prejudge that nothing else will come up through the consultation process that no other alternatives will be
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suggested um or that other things won't happen that will affect that so we need to be very careful not to prejudge
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the consultation sometimes we get situations as well where if we do have
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or when the fortunate positions have alternative jobs available sometimes we can find that
32:12
some clients have made assumptions that individuals won't be able to do certain roles and therefore they never put them on the
32:19
table as far as that individual is concerned to be considered for them um i always advise just allowing
32:24
everybody to see every role that's available and allow the individual to make that decision for themselves
32:30
and then if they are interested in a role we can consider the application from there and work through and and
32:36
and come to a reasoned conclusion from there it's much better that way than just assuming that someone won't want a
32:42
particular job and missing out on giving them that opportunity and then failing to identify situations
32:48
where collective consultation is required the implication of not going through collective consultation
32:54
and where we do can be quite severe or what we should do can be quite severe so there is a standalone claim for a
33:00
protective award of up to 90 days paid per employee who should have been involved within a
33:06
collective consultation process so if we've got a number of employees that should be involved that's a number
33:12
of claims all for effectively three months pay and so it's not a small small thing to be sort of paying lip
33:19
service to and so again it really does need good consideration before you embark on the process
33:27
um rachel mentioned the job support scheme um so it seems to have been a bit of a confusion around sort of the job support
33:33
scheme and how it weighs in on the redundancy redundancy side of life unlike the job
33:40
retention scheme employees can't actually be given notice of redundancy or made redundant during the
33:45
period where their employer is actually claiming through the job support scheme
33:51
support scheme in terms of information for sort of providing detailed advice is difficult at the moment because we are awaiting further guidance from the
33:57
government and a lot of the details will obviously hopefully be ironed out through that guidance similar
34:04
with the job retention scheme where we had sort of roughs of uh treasury directions and guidance that shifted and changed as time went on
34:11
um we expect a similar situation with the job support scheme um we'll be hoping for more guidance obviously before the scheme kicks off
34:18
um one of the things that it would be good to sort of clarify for example would be whether or not you could embark on
34:23
the consultation process whilst those are on the job support scheme and whilst you're claiming through that
34:28
process but at the moment that just isn't clear and the government are referring to the scheme being in place for viable
34:35
jobs um and so you can argue both ways as to whether or not is a job viable at the point that we're consulting
34:42
on the other hand we haven't actually yet made any decisions about that role because that's the whole point of consultation so
34:47
be interesting to see how the government the government clear that up and then as rachel said job support
34:52
scheme something that we should really be giving consideration to as an alternative to redundancy and that's not to say that if the job
34:59
you know with the job support scheme being available that it prevents redundancy but obviously we're going to have to give it consideration um and is it an
35:05
alternative and if we feel as though it's not because the job isn't viable really we ought to be just
35:11
noting and evidencing that sort of thought process around it um thank you thanks very much for that
35:17
overview matt um that's great i've seen a lot of questions um coming in so just gonna
35:22
hand over to maddie to talk us through mitigating the negative impacts of redundancies and then we'll address as many of those
35:28
as we can so over to you maddie thank you katie so i'm going to bolt on
35:33
a lot of what rachel's mentioned earlier about the the negative psychological impact but mostly how to
35:40
avoid that um doing doing the unfortunate case where redundancies has to be implemented
35:48
danielle if we can have the next slide please so um basically my research covers um
35:55
three main elements inside action and researcher and what that means is basically i was
36:01
embedded inside an organization so during the data collection of my research i was actually
36:08
an hr practitioner implementing the redundancies myself
36:13
while whilst collecting data and working with many other professionals going through the same process
36:20
and the action bet refers to driving continuous improvement while
36:25
doing research so how can we continuously improve how we implement redundancies and what can
36:32
we do to mitigate the impact and this involved a five-year
36:38
longitudinal study during the implementation of four redundancies in a pilot study
36:45
thanks to now so um redundancies can be successful as rachel
36:52
said earlier by doing it consciously and responsibility with a good responsibility
36:58
so my pilot study um during the five year period we managed to change the
37:03
financial position of a organization by 21 21.7
37:09
the company was lost making um it was near closing and during the process of four
37:15
redundancies we actually managed to turn it around for it to be very profitable so i'm
37:20
going to share with you now how and how that was achieved and share some practical advice on what you can do to
37:28
implement redundancies with hopefully getting a similar outcome if it is possible the sad
37:36
the sad part of redundancy is that is that most literature demonstrate that um redundancies as a
37:43
method to improve organizational performance or drive competitiveness and productivity um
37:50
is not usually successful it mostly does not tend to reap
37:57
the economic success that was planned from the start and therefore we need to be very
38:02
cautious as using redundancy as a cost cutting exercise
38:08
as as literature has indicated from many studies it's not the best method to achieve
38:14
success of cost cutting and it is not always um successful
38:19
in getting an organization to turn around and why is this the reason that most
38:27
companies fail to achieve economic success is that they ignore the
38:32
human element it's not just the process there's there's people involved and those people
38:37
are the reason why companies do well and succeed so the negative impact that
38:43
redundancies have an organization should never be underestimated it impacts every single employee in that
38:50
company and um to to mitigate and to help mitigate that negative
38:56
impact you could help by being more successful in the intended
39:02
outcome of the redundancies if you have to go to the unfortunate route of implementing redundancies um you know it
39:09
is important to focus on the people factor of um you know why this is being done in
39:16
the first place so the three impacted group in redundancies as rachel mentioned earlier
39:22
is the victims and unfortunately that's the people that exit the company and lose their
39:29
positions survivors are the individuals that remain in the company and doing and after the redundancy
39:36
program is concluded and then the most important group um that's
39:42
quite often overlooked is the redundancy invoice and these are the people the hr
39:48
professionals the managers the directors and even the employee representatives
39:54
that take on the role of implementing redundancies it's the people who have to look you in the eye and say i'm really sorry
40:01
um you have to leave you know that you have to lose your job or with until you lose your income and
40:06
it's an extremely unpleasant role um that that bears a lot of burden and
40:12
stress and during the current circumstances a lot of these people um that have to do the the dirty job of
40:19
making redundant are actually at risk themselves um quite often hr professionals have to close
40:25
down organizations um knowing that very well at the end that they will lose their own
40:30
job and that there's a tremendous amount of stress and burden that they have to deal with thanks to
40:37
nell so what are the impact and the impact of victims are i think pretty well known
40:42
but just to summarize um it includes immense psychological stress poor health with all the worries um you
40:50
know where will they get an income where will they find a new job and this puts stress on family
40:57
and personal problems you know when suddenly holidays get cancelled or the expenses
41:02
are um are cut especially this time of the year you know we always advise that if you
41:08
could avoid redundancy around christmas time that's fabulous quite often organizations don't have a
41:14
choice though and they do have to continue um through a period that's really family driven and
41:20
it's a very unfortunate and unpleasant situation if it comes to christmas and people are having to um you know
41:27
watch their pennies um so it's just a little bit of sensitivity on the human factor
41:32
of when the timing of redundancy takes place um it can often lead to depression
41:39
helplessness and anxiety you know why me why am i in this position am i not as good as you know my colleague
41:46
feelings of social isolation especially during um you know covert 19 where people are
41:53
working from home think about the fact that they are already isolated
41:58
and add to that the fact that if they've been made redundant or put at risk of redundancy
42:03
oh how that social isolation has escalated you know there's not just a colleague
42:09
down the road or down the corridor that they could speak with that's in the same boat that they can share experiences with so
42:16
victims and require extra support during um you know this difficult time
42:21
um feeling of damage to career um a lot of self-confidence is lost when you when
42:26
you put in the situation and and people feel that they'll never be able to you know get a job or be as
42:33
confident in getting the same job as they had before of course the loss of earning power uh
42:39
feelings of cynicism so they may just feel you know this company this world this covet um
42:45
you know being very negative of course um insecurity and uncertainty we
42:50
you know it's already a very uncertain environment topple that with a redundancy or being
42:56
at risk that stresses is increased and of course decreased loyalty um in future
43:02
employment because with that citizen they may think well i won't give as much to this job because it might happen again
43:09
thanks danelle so the impact on survivors and survivors are also you know well studied group um and and
43:17
some of the common impact that's um probably well recognized in this community is the increased workload you know your
43:24
colleague leaves and since suddenly you have to do their job as well and so the work work load increase but
43:30
you don't get paid anymore um survivor guilt and sometimes you know
43:36
people feel guilty they think well why did my colleague go you know she's pregnant or
43:41
you know they've just bought in their house it should be me and they feel guilty that their colleagues
43:46
are being put in this position or asked to leave and they kept their job
43:51
and of course with that comes fear and anger you know it you know with it by my next and my next
43:57
one will be the next round of redundancies and other people um feel survivor envy
44:03
they might have put their hand up for a voluntary redundancy um and maybe you know at that at that
44:09
time in their career where it suited them to take a package but maybe because they
44:14
have good skills or talent they were rejected so they might feel a bit jealous going oh wish i
44:20
you know i wish i got the job of being made redundant so i could move on um so there's you know very mixed
44:27
emotions that come on in the survivor population then there's anger why is this happening some people are
44:34
feeling relieved you know it's not me thank goodness um but of course continued job insecurity
44:41
in in the environment we we're working in and living in who who's next am i next how long before
44:47
you know um it happens again and so a lot of stress again that that is associated with being
44:53
a survivor and then of course higher levels of stress leads to absenteeism
44:59
there's mistrust between colleagues you know they don't know who who's who's out for themselves and who's
45:05
not out um to protect one another um this decreased employee involvement because i just
45:11
think oh i need to focus on myself you know i'm not that engaged with this company this company is fully managed
45:17
so a lot of negativity in the the forward process and lack of trust towards management and
45:23
you know management didn't run us properly if they did we wouldn't be in this situation
45:28
and then working in an environment with possible decreased work quality morale productivity because
45:34
people aren't working as much as they've done okay thank you so what is the impact on
45:41
redundancy invoice and the research clearly that the impact on redundancy invoice
45:48
the hr population the managers are a combination of both what victims
45:53
and survivors experience and so a significant amount of emotions that they've
45:59
exposed to everything we've covered before fear frustration guilt anger they
46:06
are having to deal with all these emotions themselves thanks to now so what can organizations
46:12
do to help help mitigate the impact it's very important to support each group
46:19
of the impacted population individually and they each have their own requirements and support on how they should be
46:27
treated thanks danelle so um constructive damage
46:33
control in the sense of if you have no choice but you have to go through the route of redundancies
46:39
there are two stages of that you can consider the hr initiatives
46:44
rachel pretty much covered pretty well earlier um there's just maybe two points i'd like
46:50
to add to that and when you're in the hr shoes think about and the people you can't be without the
46:57
talent are the people who will jump ship first they're the people who will go well i
47:02
don't want to stay in this company it's the sinking ship um analogy and therefore they'll start looking for work
47:09
first and these are probably the people you need to retain so think about what you could do to retain the talent
47:15
and any people if they leave and what would the impact be if there is single point of failure to your organization
47:23
you know that could be quite um negative if you lose skills that's quite critical to the
47:28
success of your organization from our organizational side think um
47:33
again to what matt said earlier about anything you do you can you can do to cut costs and save jobs
47:40
redundancy should be a last option so think about changing business model and we've seen some wonderful examples
47:47
during the covet 19 of how for example a company that's made gen before
47:53
moved to making hand sanitizer to survive to adjust what they've done
47:58
before and to to keep the business going and therefore safe safe jobs i've seen companies save money
48:05
by um for example starting to recycle equipment they no longer need and that all you know is a fresh fresh
48:13
influx of income that saves jobs um you know look at car and fuel schemes
48:19
how critical is that when people are working from home and you know think of all different options to save
48:25
overhead costs if people are working from home do you need a big office still can you relocate you know to a smaller
48:32
premise and so all all different factors to consider thanks danielle so um support for the
48:40
victims and again rachel or bolden what you said earlier it needs to be a fair and transparent
48:46
process and redeploy where possible and with consultation and might save meaningful consultation
48:54
and this is really where you get to understand people have more skills than perhaps that they have just in their
49:00
specific job they may be trained to do something completely different that you are unaware of
49:05
so see where you can offer people roles and that you didn't actually even consider in a different
49:12
area or a different department in the organization you can support people with cv writing and
49:19
interview skills workshops i've seen companies look at
49:24
running self-employment workshops to promote victims or the same employees at rest to
49:32
encourage starting their own businesses and if you have an aging population think of running pension workshops and
49:38
retirement workshops on how to manage your portfolio and your your money
49:44
um you know what what what assistance is available financially if people are made redundant
49:49
regardless of age you know through banks and loans all these kind of elements can be
49:56
considered to help to help these people at risk uh counseling sessions and that would apply
50:01
to each group um you know to really support them let them talk through their fears
50:08
um dedicated career advice appointments you know really give people the support
50:13
they need to think what can i do with my career maybe it's time for a change and also what i've found
50:18
been really effective is giving employees social media training and way to look for hidden jobs because
50:25
we assume everybody can do this and this may not be the case if you haven't looked for work for a long time
50:33
so i'll look at the the last group lost to groups briefly um survivors think of training and
50:39
development if they're picking up new um new jobs you know they need training for this um
50:47
if they have a lot a lot more increased workload and they need support on how
50:52
how they can do this and then finally i'll end on redundancy invoice
50:58
um which is the you know key population these are the people that have to take
51:04
the organization with leadership through to the next stage and if they're not looked after they
51:09
will fault and the business will unfold as a result so think about line management they may not be competent
51:16
in law and redundancy law and they're not experts in hr so to give
51:22
them training so they're confident in their con consultations and give um
51:27
especially the management and hr training on how to deal with giving bad news and they're often called
51:34
deaf talents because it's such an unpleasant role um change management training can be
51:40
really helpful because it's significant change organizations go through and then the same support you would
51:46
offer all previous groups counseling our placement services and i'll go back to katie's point in the
51:53
beginning of the cipd support as well it's there for hr people and managers
51:59
and my last point is use the people that's implemented redundancies before they're
52:06
more confident um they've been through the experience and as a result they're less likely to
52:11
have such a significant impact on their psychological well-being
52:16
so that is everything from me in a nutshell thank you katie thank you so much maddie and a reminder
52:22
that the slides will be available for download because there's so much useful information in there um i'm going to move quickly on to q a i
52:29
asked matt to tackle some of the um legal simple illegal ones by typing so he has done that thank you
52:34
matt so we've got a question and this has come up from a few other sessions we've
52:40
done about consultation meetings needing to happen virtually due to government guidance and
52:45
restrictions um matt is there a legal view on doing things um online uh no not at all it's a simple
52:53
answer as long as you can show that you've um meaningfully consulted that's really what you're aiming for um interesting we
52:58
used to shy away from sort of uh advising doing meetings over the phone and that sort of stuff um mainly because it the concern was
53:05
that it it didn't help show that you were giving it to the the due sort of care and attention and but obviously in the current climate
53:11
if it's not possible to meet or not advisable to then it's fine to do it over the over the phone or video call or whatever it may
53:17
be from a legal point of view and i think you need to just weigh in the um sort of the effect of that on the
53:23
individual they've not got their usual support around them at work and also you need to make sure that you
53:29
are available to them in between those calls as well because again you know in a normal redundancy they'd be able to raise
53:35
things with you in between meetings so it's important to build those extra bits in but no legally there's nothing to prevent
53:42
and maddy has any of your research kind of touched on the impact of doing it not in person um no
53:48
no i haven't i haven't done anything on that yet but i'm sure i will imminently yeah um
53:55
rachel you mentioned in in your um presentation about well-being charities um somebody's asked if you can
54:00
give any advice and where to find them if they don't have an eap yeah that's a really important question i'm glad somebody asked that if not
54:07
everybody does have educational health or employee assistance program there are some really good well-being charity helplines out there
54:14
like mind and there's a variety of different ways that you can get support for mental health through through mind
54:21
they've got a legal advice line as well the same line also i think it's
54:27
important to mention samaritans which is free 24 7
54:32
support that people can access also just to briefly mention that some employees might want to get
54:39
advice from citizens advice or a cast if they if they've got questions about the
54:45
actual process itself thank you um i'll put this to you first
54:51
matt regarding selection criteria for redundancy if people have been furloughed or working from home or shielding
54:58
um or caring how can you objectively and sorry assess their performance so you don't
55:03
disadvantage them when you go into that process yeah it's very difficult i mean the obvious answer would be to almost
55:09
look back to a previous period to try and assess their performance over so maybe you look back sort of pre-pandemic
55:14
and pre-sort of such business disruption and use that as a fairer period of time to try and
55:20
assess them um it's difficult the other option would be sort of artificially perhaps inflating their performance i mean this
55:25
is all on the assumption that they've had an impact on their performance whilst they've been working at home or or working from home for shielding and
55:32
so on and so forth but if that is the case then yeah it would be fairer to try and look back to another period
55:38
artificially inflating their scores will just leave you open to you sort of having gone over the top on that and then those that are selected as
55:45
a result of that and sort of being able to raise an argument in in saying that that's not objective you know we've
55:51
we've subjectively changed that or we're applying a slightly different criteria to different individuals um it is important to do that though i
55:57
mean from those that are shielding potentially they're shielding as a result of a disability from an employment law point of view
56:04
and obviously we don't want to be indirectly discriminating against them and there's an obligation to make reasonable adjustments as well so
56:10
you know it may be maybe simpler and fairer to look back to a period where it was more of a level playing field so
56:16
to speak for individuals in terms of their performance if that's what you're using as part of your criteria
56:21
thank you maddie you mentioned that um change management training would be useful can you elaborate on what kind of
56:26
content that would be i think just going through the the the process of change
56:32
um for for management and um line managers going through this whole
56:37
um can i say difficult period with covert 19 but then if you add restructuring and
56:42
redundancies to it you know it's important to learn the key skills of how to manage
56:48
change effectively such as cotta's eight steps of change management
56:54
okay um matt what do you do if you're if you're in a situation where you have people without um sorry with less than
57:01
two years service in a business with no policy for redundancy or redeployment what process should you follow i guess
57:08
there's a legal question there and maybe rachel you can pick up on um what else an organization could consider doing for
57:14
those without those um two years of service yes i suppose the key legal point here being that
57:19
with under two years of service they don't have the unfair dismissal protection and a lot of what we've talked about
57:25
obviously is is predicated on the basis that people will be able to bring unfair dismissal claims that's sort of where
57:30
fairness comes into it from an employment law point of view um so if we've got less than 20 and
57:36
they're under two years provided we're not going to walk into another claim for discrimination or there's a list of areas known as the
57:42
automatic unfair reasons for dismissal where you don't need two years service as an employee if you can show that
57:47
that's the reason for your dismissal then potentially you can go through a very shortened process um you know as short potentially as one
57:54
meeting um as brutal as that may sound um if there's more than 20 you've still got the obligation to collectively
58:00
consult and there's no um qualifying service from an employee's point of view and for when collective consultation
58:06
should take place or equally the claim that the individuals can potentially bring so again quite dependent on numbers and
58:12
always these are quite dependent on the specific facts and the makeup within the workforce and exactly what it is that we're proposing
58:18
but yeah subject to discrimination and automatic unfair dismissal and potentially your process can be very short
58:24
and rachel given that we're in such a kind of tough tough times if you have people with less than two years services or anything
58:29
buys on making the process easier for them or enhancing what you can give it anyway yeah i i know this is a really difficult
58:36
situation but just remembering really that that person's still an individual
58:42
and they are still going to leave the organization and how you treat them is
58:47
going to be really instrumental in terms of how they they leave and the resilience with which they
58:55
deal with it and the confidence of which they might find another job so it's still
59:01
respecting and discharging your duty of of care in terms of their health and
59:06
well-being to that individual regardless of their qualifying period and so on and treating them in a humane way as an individual
59:14
okay um we've got a few questions kind of pushed together about um how you select
59:20
employee reps um maddie any advice on the best approach for for doing that
59:27
well i i i would suggest that you obviously open the floor and invite everybody to see who who
59:33
would like to go through um you know would like to volunteer for reps in the first place
59:38
and i think once you have your reps it's very important that they get the same training and transparency as you would
59:44
offer your management so they also need to be confident in in you know what is their
59:49
aspects of redundancy law or how to manage change how to deal with difficult um
59:56
conversations because if they are if you're singing from the same sheet you know it could be very
1:00:01
uh very helpful and supportive in getting people through the process as amicably as possible um and matt i
1:00:08
know you answered this in the um in the q a box but when electing reps for collective
1:00:14
consultation is voting by email to hr secret enough or is there no
1:00:19
secret more secret um yeah i don't think it is i mean it's actually set out in the legislation that i mean effectively
1:00:25
what you're looking at is an election with all of the usual rules in place so um you know secret ballots and so on and
1:00:31
so forth um i don't think an email from an individual um is secret enough interesting we actually had this as a
1:00:36
query prop up yesterday within the advice teams um i think the query posed was that it
1:00:42
would be an email to hr which is fine but obviously hr are part of the business so the business is then aware who's voted for who
1:00:48
um it's also going to be in the email log of the organization as well i'm sure it's backed up and saved somewhere through some form of i.t system
1:00:54
not my speciality but i'm sure it's there somewhere so no i don't think it is really secret
1:00:59
i mean it is difficult where you've got people who are working remotely um i mean that said there are a number of organizations that will provide
1:01:06
um anonymous surveys that um you know you can run in better times and that really a lot of employers are
1:01:12
still obviously keen to ensure that they're doing some engagement surveys i'm sure the questions there can be adapted to turn it into a secret way of
1:01:19
voting um online or remotely so to speak thank you i'm afraid that we are out of
1:01:25
time uh there um just a reminder because there were quite um there are a few questions in there that are quite
1:01:31
um specific to individual situations and quite complex legally if you are a cipd member remember that
1:01:37
you can call our employment law helpline um hr inform and if you call that you will get an individual
1:01:43
response to your query so i would strongly advise you to um to do that if we didn't manage to
1:01:48
pick up your questions uh today um thank you so much to maddie matt and rachel um for your insight uh and
1:01:56
for taking those questions there um thanks everybody for watching and putting in um putting in your questions and and for the feedback i can see
1:02:02
you're giving right now i'm really glad that you found that useful um we've talked a lot about the
1:02:07
psychological impact of this and i'd just like to flag again the well-being helpline um from the cipd
1:02:13
because we do know that this is incredibly tough time for hr professionals you can see details about it on your screen right
1:02:19
now so do remember to look after yourselves because it's a really challenging thing to go through um we'll be back next week with a
1:02:25
webinar looking at maintaining productivity so look out for details about that and
1:02:30
do sign up if you're interested but that is it from us for now and we hope you have a good afternoon
1:02:37
goodbye