Successful Restructuring and Redundancy programmes

Varying economic times dictate a company’s actions.  Financial uncertainty can lead to companies closing and laying off workers, while an economic upturn can encourage acquisitions and mergers. No matter what the economic climate a company needs to follow a structured plan to ensure a smooth process as they go through major corporate transactions and restructurings.

From mergers, acquisitions, reduced demand for products or services, changes in technology and plant closures careful handling of restructuring and redundancy is essential to minimise the risks and comply with employment legislation and employee relations issues.

Companies engaged in a restructure involving redundancy or redeployment often face a difficult period in terms of managing employee relations, costs, risk and productivity. These factors may also be balanced with the desire of the management to do the right thing by their staff. An objective assessment approach enables a company to provide a fair and defensible process, and allows it to see where their talent lies to help the business move forward following a restructure.

The use of clear and structured assessment criteria in redundancy or redeployment processes greatly benefits the business by:

• By providing a fair and defensible selection process employees are less likely to appeal against final decisions
• Allowing the company to identify talented individuals and effectively match skills in the population to future requirements
• Providing development opportunities through feedback, to both retained employees and those leaving the company

The following steps help to ensure a fair and defensible assessment process, which in turn facilitate positive outcomes for the business and the individuals involved.

1 – Have Clear Objectives

At the start of any project it is imperative that the organisation and key stakeholders are all clear about the objectives of the process. Without clarification of the goal, it is hard to ensure a process will be designed and delivered that will meet the success criteria. Whoever first identifies the need for redeployment/redundancy must have a rationale in mind and it is important that this is explored, understood and accepted by those involved in the roll out of the process.

• What are the success criteria?
• What are the proposed outcomes and business factors determining the change?
• Are you looking to assess against current role performance or future requirements?
• Who are the population likely to be impacted?
• Will volunteers from outside the affected population be accepted?
• What is the proposed approach to support objective decision makers (Assessment Centre, psychometrics, interviews etc)?
• Who are the key decision makers and stakeholders to engage with?
• Ensure HR representatives are present at all briefings to advise and guide managers, manage questions and feedback key issues raised to the decision makers.

2 – Communicate with Employee Representatives and Unions

As a first step in the redundancy or redeployment process, a procedure should be put in place and communicated internally to employees and their representatives. This benefits all parties by helping to ensure fair treatment. By openly sharing information, the process is more likely to be understood and will demonstrate the company’s continued concern for their employees.

• Communicate the policy, process and any updates to employee representatives and/or trade unions as soon as possible.
• Sharing and agreeing points with  employee representatives and/or trade unions allows all parties the opportunity to influence the policy before any changes are made, therefore helping to reduce the likelihood of appeals at the end of the process.
• Provide details about the retraining, transfer and redeployment opportunities available.
• Consider and design a redundancy appeals procedure to deal with complaints from employees who feel that the selection/assessment procedure has been unfairly applied to them. This could be achieved by setting up a committee of management and employee representatives to consider individual grievances and any subsequent remedies.

3 – Communicate the Process

People are naturally concerned and apprehensive about the unknown, so clear communications can help to ensure clarity and a thorough understanding of upcoming events. Ongoing communication and support can help to put people at ease during a redundancy or redeployment process. It is also advisable to provide information to employees on what to expect and what the process will involve.

• Try to minimise uncertainty: announce plans to all involved hierarchically and simultaneously according to job level and provide an initial briefing document to respond to any immediate queries.
• Advise in writing all employees who are “At Risk” and those who are not involved in the process.
• Explain to staff the decision making. This can be done through either a briefing document or face to face group briefings
• It is helpful to have a full briefing immediately prior to the first assessment interviews being undertaken. Here, you can introduce the employees to the personnel that are involved and make sure they are clear about what the assessment will be like.
• Gaining the buy-in of the senior operational manager who fully understands what is involved emphasises the business support towards the process.

4 – Understand what to Assess

An important element in designing a successful process is ensuring that the criteria for selection are directly relevant to the roles being reviewed. In order to do this, some form of job analysis should be conducted. This involves talking to, and possibly observing, people currently in the affected roles to identify the behaviours demonstrated (which will be assessed), the types of tasks completed (which will inform the choice or design of exercises) and the level of behaviours required for success (which will become the benchmark for identifying effective employees).

• Whilst it is ideal to speak with individuals already in role, during a redundancy or redeployment process these individuals are likely to be going through the process themselves.
• If new jobs are being created, or if roles are changing, observing people in current roles may not be appropriate. Even if this is the case, it is still important for some kind of job analysis to occur, as if a participant appeals their Assessment interview outcome, evidence would be needed to show why specific behaviours and benchmarks were chosen.

• In these situations, job analysis could be conducted with:
  • Directors or those leading the restructure to understand the drivers of change
  • Senior managers who can project what behaviours they anticipate being required in any new or changed roles
  • Customers who can outline what their current needs are, or how these might change in the future
• Draw up a matrix of all required skills and behaviours and rate them on priority and importance.

5 – Manage Special Requirements

When designing the assessment process, it is important to consider how individuals who may have special requirements can access the assessment process. There are many types of special requirements to consider, with some of the most common ones being those with physical disabilities, learning difficulties or visual impairment.

When people are selected to go through the assessment process, whether through nomination or voluntary application, it is important to directly contact anyone who states a ‘special requirement’ to explore their specific requirements.

• Discuss what adaptations they currently have in the workplace, explain the types of assessments they will be completing and agree how you could adapt the activities for them
• Don’t make assumptions about their requirements, but communicate openly around any adaptations necessary

6 – Assessment Criteria

When using  assessment criteria  as part of a redundancy process, it is vital for objectivity and legal defensibility reasons, that the tools and measures used provide consistency and a balance of themes, creating a ‘level playing field’ for all participants, irrespective of their specific prior experiences or knowledge. Tools for selection can include psychometric tests, questionnaires, application forms, structured interviews and business simulation exercises.

• By understanding the role requirements and what good performance looks like, you will be able to identify the key six to eight competencies essential for the role or job level, and which tools will provide a good measure of these.
• Assessment simulation exercises have great validity as they can be designed to replicate the kinds of tasks the employee completes in their daily work. They provide objective behavioural evidence of current capability, which serves as an indication of future performance.
• Consider time, resources and budget, as these will all influence your choice of tools. Assessing for redundancy purposes warrants significant investment because of the potential cost of getting it wrong.
• Once you have selected your assessment tools, if appropriate, you should try them out. This confirms whether they are pitched at the right level for your specific purpose and will enable you to create a benchmark.

7 – Maintain Objectivity and Fairness

A key reason for using pre-defined assessment criteria are that they are one of the fairest and most objective selection tools available, meaning they can help ensure your assessment for redundancy or redeployment process is legally defensible.

• All participants must receive the same experience, the same communications and be treated equally when scoring.
• Any exercises should be delivered and marked by trained internal or external assessors who are able to objectively assess performance on the different activities.
• Scoring rules should be applied in the same way to all participants. Your scoring rules should be determined in advance to ensure that decisions are not made after seeing individual participant scores. This is an important part of the process, as ultimately this is what the decisions regarding redundancy or redeployment are based on.
• Process should be overseen by an independent manager, who is both an experienced assessor and able to coach the assessing team and benchmark their write-ups.

8 – Provide Feedback to Participants

All participants should be given some feedback on their own performance, at least results provided in a written report. This is then something they can use as the basis for development in a new role or as part of their reflection when applying (internally or externally) for other positions.

• Giving feedback is often overlooked, but it shows the organisation’s commitment to transparency and to supporting individuals by providing clear and objective feedback around strengths and development areas, both for those leaving the organisation and those retained in new roles.
• Bearing in mind the emotional drain of this type of process on all involved, individuals will want to know as quickly as possible what their outcome is, and then at a more leisurely pace digest their feedback and review the impact.
• Participants should know in advance the timescale for feedback, who will deliver it and how it will be delivered.
• We recommend that each individual is informed of the outcome (e.g. stay in role, be redeployed, or made redundant) separately to receiving their assessment interview feedback.

Other Considerations

These steps are key to a successful and well run assessment process, however there are likely to be other things to think about in the design and implementation of an assessment for redundancy or redeployment process:

• Put mechanisms in place to support and encourage participants on the day of their assessment interview to reduce anxiety for those taking part.
• As well as those leaving the organisation, support the survivors, as ensuring positive engagement with retained employees impacts post-change performance.

At HR Management Support we have many years of experience of successfully managing restructuring and redundancy programmes. Careful handling of restructuring and redundancy is essential to minimise the risks and comply with employment legislation and employee relations issues so, for professional advice and guidance and help with managing your project please contact us first.