How do you negotiate the emotional and legal minefield of redundancies?
Have a clear project plan and timetable. Plan your communication strategy meticulously: who should be told and when; what should they be told; where and how should the messages be conveyed? Explain repeatedly the reasons for change and what will be better as a result.
Visible leadership is crucial. The senior team needs to talk to people face to face. No formal consultation process should be announced beforeinformal meetings are held with affected individuals so that they know what is coming.
Know the law and don’t cut corners. Be aware of collective consultation requirements if you are making 20 or more staff redundant within any three-month period. Be aware of the different purposes of collective and individual consultation. Irrespective of the number of employees faced with redundancy, you must formally consult individuals about the options available to them.
Make sure people are capable of undertaking the roles into which you redeploy them. Apply consistent and transparent procedures for determining how people are selected for redundancy and redeployment. Where people apply for redeployment into a post that is quite different to or more senior than their redundant role, they should be tested and interviewed to ensure they are capable.
Sweeten the pill if you can. If it’s at all possible to offer a financial enhancement for people to accept ‘voluntary redundancy’; this is a good way of bolstering individual choice and dignity. If you can offer an enhancement, however modest, then never do so without requiring the employee to sign a legally valid compromise agreement to waive their rights to make a claim against you in an employment tribunal.
Treat people with honesty, openness and decency throughout. Failure to do so will diminish the commitment to your organisation from those who stay. Keep up normal routines - people value symbols of stability in times of change. Allow all who stay to have some input into planning for the future of the new organisation.
Make sure that those who leave you have a good send-off. If you have managed the change properly you should feel no shame or hesitation in attending a redundant employee’s ‘leaving do’ and wishing them well.
Helen Giles is managing director of Broadway’s Real People HR consultancy
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