Navigating an economic downturn – and looking after your people

0:08
good afternoon and welcome to today's webinar where we're going to be
0:14
looking at navigating an economic downturn um whilst really importantly looking
0:19
after your people so this is a really topical and really currently relevant issue that we're
0:25
going to be talking around today how do we ensure that we're focusing on our people their well-being and being a
0:32
responsible business at the same time as tackling some really difficult economic issues
0:38
so I'm delighted that we've got a a great panel of four speakers ready to
0:43
share their Insight with us around this topic and they're going to be looking at
0:48
um dealing with organization change including downsizing in a way that um hopefully limits potential job losses
0:56
But ultimately treats people with compassion and treats people with care
1:02
um before I introduce my speakers um I will introduce myself my name is
1:07
Jill Miller I work at the cipd in our public policy team specializing in diversity and inclusion so really
1:13
pleased to be chairing this session today I'll be introducing the speakers and as well Fielding some of your
1:18
comments and questions um at the end of the webinar but to get onto our speakers who you've
1:25
come here today to to hear from um first up we will be hearing from Rachel suff who is a senior policy
1:32
advisor at the COPD and she specializes in employee relations and employee
1:37
well-being and Rachel will be setting the context and setting the scene for us today
1:43
um then we'll be hearing from Maddie Stevens who is a senior lecturer in human resource management at Liverpool
1:50
John Moore's University and the majority of Maddie's career has been in HR as a
1:55
practitioner before she moved into Academia and her research is really topical for today focuses on the impact
2:02
of redundancies and organizations and people and Maddie is going to be talking about
2:08
the wider support needed for those remaining in the workforce
2:13
um and I think this is a really important Point not forgetting the people professionals and HR managing
2:18
Workforce change um we'll then be going to Katie Obi who
2:23
is the chief people officer on the leadership team at beamery and Katie leads the people function there as well
2:30
as really quite exciting um has responsibility for Designing and implementing a business and
2:36
customer-centric talent strategy for the business and Katie will be drawing on knowledge as well from her previous
2:41
roles where she's focused on business transformation and supporting business growth through its people and she'll be
2:48
sharing her experiences there of managing change and I'm really delighted that we have
2:53
Alan Lewis with us as well today who is a partner at Constantine law and worked
2:58
in corporate law before becoming an employment lawyer and he advised his businesses of all sizes and you may
3:05
recognize his name from being a frequent contributor to people management magazine and he'll also be on hand in
3:11
the Q a section as well before I am able to hand over to our
3:17
speakers uh a few housekeeping things from me um this session is being recorded it
3:23
will be available on demand on the webinar section of our COPD website um and there you can also find previous
3:29
recordings and find out what's coming up next so do take a look at our webinar web page
3:36
um also during the session we would like to hear from you of course with your
3:41
thoughts um with your questions so just to let you know where to to pop those
3:47
um to submit questions to the panel please put them in the Q a box um ideally not the check boxes that's
3:54
not um checked as regularly um the chat box mainly for networking with fellow attendees so if you want to
4:01
post to everybody share with everyone um it's to use all panels and all attendees within the chat box networking
4:08
function and all attendees are muted during the course of the webinar
4:14
um some additional resources that might be helpful to let you know about um we're updating the frequently asked
4:21
questions and all the resources on our cipd website regularly as new information becomes available so please
4:27
do um chat um please do check that um for some new things that we're
4:32
publishing all the time and we have a well-being Hub as well there along with many other different types of hub for
4:39
cipd members and of course a wide array of fact sheets on our website
4:44
um also really useful to know that cipd members can get individual legal advice
4:51
from our HR inform helpline which is available 24 7.
4:57
and also to let you know that cipd members in the UK and Ireland can access our well-being Hub and helpline so
5:04
together with award-winning workplace well-being provider Health assured we now provide cipd members with free help
5:11
and support 24 7 and 365 days a year via
5:16
telephone or online consultations with qualified therapists members can access the phone number and
5:22
the online services via the membership benefits web page and you can see more details about this at the end of this
5:28
session but that's all from me in terms of housekeeping up front and useful resources so I know you're online to
5:36
hear from our speakers so I'm going to get things started and hand over to our first speaker and Rachel stuff who's
5:42
going to set the scene for our webinar Rachel is a policy advisor at the cipd
5:48
so I'm going to hand straight over to you now Rachel thanks so much Jill and hi everyone so
5:54
please you can make it so as Jill said as my next slide shows I want to set the
6:01
context for uh what's happening at the moment in terms of that external environment not only in terms of
6:07
influencing organizations and navigating the downturn and decisions that you that
6:15
some of you will have to make tough decisions over the next few months in terms of restructuring and downsizing
6:22
and so on but also in terms of how this external environment is impacting on
6:27
people as well um we're still living in very turbulent and uncertain times it's almost three
6:34
years can you believe it since the onset as a pandemic but it can actually feel at the moment as if it's crisis upon
6:42
crisis and if we just think about some of the major things that are happening at the moment we've got the cost of
6:49
living crisis spiraling fuel prices and then we've got political instability as
6:55
well it can feel like a very uncertain World um for people we've had the war in
7:01
Ukraine that's still ongoing and then in terms of the economy of course which is going to influence uh the subject of
7:08
this webinar the bank of England predicts a very challenging time ahead
7:13
likely recession for the whole of next year and into 2024 as well so really
7:19
Ruka the world uh we have is volatile and certain complex and ambiguous as
7:26
well um I do want to say something positive as well at this point because I think
7:31
let's not forget that through the crises we have seen Innovation new ways of
7:37
working I think we've seen more um focus on people's health and well-being more care and compassion as
7:43
well so it's not all negative there are positive things to build on as we navigate
7:49
um the times ahead but we do need to remember I think that wider picture context in terms of people's mental
7:57
health and well-being and for many people it will have been compromised over the last period And so um have that
8:05
at the Forefront of our minds I think as we look ahead and with that theme in
8:11
mind if we look at the next slide this is just to flag really that although we
8:16
are now living with covid um there is a long tail of the pandemic and this is our
8:23
um findings from our health and well-being at work survey report which I just think shows how some of the
8:29
enduring impacts for some people in terms of their health a very real and
8:34
ongoing for example the impact on some people's mental health doesn't necessarily end
8:40
um when the pandemic ends also some people are unfortunate enough around 2 million at the moment with long covid so
8:48
a lot of people's mental health continues to be compromised and if we
8:53
look at the view of employees which is on the next slide because I think it's important that we do take on board where
9:00
are people at the moment in terms of their well-being generally and you can see the
9:07
red we focus on the red bar graphs this shows what employees said when we
9:14
asked them what their health and well-being is like mental health in terms of the red line it's our good work
9:21
index that we published in June it's a snapshot but it asks employees at work
9:26
and we can see here that most 58 said their mental health was good or very
9:32
good but 18 support or very poor now when we talk about well-being and mental health
9:40
not everybody in that category that 18 has a necessarily has a mental health
9:46
condition that's diagnosed our mental health fluctuates of course can't expect
9:51
to feel good um great all of the time but I think what organizations do need to be aware
9:57
of is that some groups in particular individuals um their mental health will be quite
10:03
vulnerable at the moment for example if they've already had a pre-existent mental health condition also young
10:08
people in our survey but in other research it does show that
10:14
um their mental health is tending to be poorer at the moment so it's just bearing not making judgments on people
10:20
but bearing in mind at this wider context and as we go into if we look at
10:26
the next slide in terms of you know that economic picture and the influence
10:32
that's going to have on organizations in terms of restructuring and redundancy and this is a slide from another one of
10:39
our survey days that we published very recently on Labor Market Outlook and
10:46
indicators and it shows redundancy intentions and we can see that although they're they're
10:52
very low still 16 of employers said they intended to make um redundancies to the end of the year
10:59
and that's ticking up from 13 um last quarter and the quarter before
11:06
and I think what we have to bear in mind is that um indicators like redundancies and
11:13
unemployment a lagging indicators so um you can expect these to increase and
11:19
indeed the bank of England says uh predicts that the number of redundancies
11:25
um and unemployment as well is on that upwards trajectory so that's a very
11:30
brief um snapshot of the um picture of redundancies
11:36
now if we look at the next um slide because everyone to stress here
11:42
the importance of um considering genuinely considering alternatives to
11:48
redundancy here are just some of the approaches that employers in our Labor
11:54
Market Outlook have consistently shown over the last um two or three years to consider which
12:02
which is encouraging because there are lots of different Alternatives and there's a responsibility for
12:08
organizations to really look at those seriously consider suggestions as well
12:13
from employees who may be at risk of redundancy too so here are some of the
12:19
main ones um temporary layoffs recruitment freezes reuse deployment of course wage
12:25
flexibility now of course this might be more problematic in the current climate because of the financial pressures on
12:32
people and the cost of living crisis however if you're alternative is layoffs
12:39
and reducing head count it could be more palatable and I think
12:45
you might be surprised considering that some people have changed their
12:50
aspirations and attitudes around work reduced hours short-term working for
12:55
example reduced hours and it's always worth exploring these Alternatives
13:01
um and somebody has said job sharing yes or you know be creative
13:07
consult engage with your people because you might be surprised you can be creative but then if we look at the next
13:15
um side it could still be unavoidable obviously it goes without saying that redundancy loan people are is the last
13:24
resort and people need to know that it's the last resort in their organization as
13:29
well but no doubt a lot of organizations could be making some very tough
13:34
decisions in the months ahead and it's a really hard undertaking for our people
13:39
professionals and for employers to make job Cuts you know nobody's going to
13:45
um approach that with any kind of um you know in one sense positivity you
13:52
know especially in the current climate but it could be unavoidable um I think it is important to bear in
13:58
mind as well the impact on the people who are carrying out that process which could be yourselves very likely
14:05
um also line managers as well who are going to be the first protocol very lightly for people so
14:13
really important I think that we obviously comply with the law and there's a lot of law around redundancy
14:19
that's a given but I just want to talk in the next slide really about how important it is to handle
14:27
um those redundancies as Jill said um with compassion you know with people at the center and focus on their
14:34
well-being as well and it really does go hand in hand with compliance actually so
14:41
here we go here's some pointers and I think um
14:47
first off what is compassion you know let's just think about what that word compassion means as well because it's
14:53
not fluffy actually yes it does mean having empathy trying to put yourself in the other person's shoes and understand
14:59
what they're feeling having that consideration that care that kindness but actually
15:06
um in the world of work and for our people professionals it means being prepared to also act on this situation
15:13
now what does that mean in a restructuring redundancy situation it doesn't mean necessarily not making
15:19
those redundancies they really could be unavoidable but what it means is that
15:25
you can take a number of steps to improve the process and how that's
15:30
carried out and also how people are treated how you approach it because it
15:37
will make I don't think you can underestimate the um amount of difference it will make to people
15:43
so first of all key principle obviously is treating people with dignity respect
15:49
and kindness and it really does make a big difference the how you you go about
15:56
it not necessarily what um the outcome might be the same but if
16:01
you're treated with dignity respect and kindness it will make such a difference to how people feel able to cope and move
16:07
on look to the Future live with their dignity and respect intact and
16:14
communication I don't think you could communicate too much really during a
16:19
restructuring redundancy process and people need information they need answers so it needs to be two-way very
16:26
definitely so I need to let you know there needs to be a lot listening um and communicating back on based on
16:34
what people's concerns are but it's also the tone of your Communications as well because if you don't communicate enough
16:40
the rumor mill will step in to feel to feel the vacuum as well and that could
16:45
be quite harmful um people need to know that it was the last resort that they're valued
16:52
um that it's a the role that's been made redundant and not not them as a person because of a reflection of their
16:59
performance and so on so you know that's all really um important and then provide ongoing
17:06
health and well-being support whatever you can provide do provide it and on those people as well who are The
17:13
Messengers who are breaking the news and carrying out um the process too so continually offer
17:20
that support also does your employee assistance program if you have one offer
17:25
support for people who've made redundant after they've left the organization Asia
17:31
because some do um sometimes up to three months so do explore that and see if that's a
17:37
possibility and outplacement support can be much cheaper now practical support to
17:43
help to help find another job very important and now this virtual
17:48
um offerings that are much cheaper so look into that and then be mindful of
17:54
the potential impact on the wider Workforce there needs to be a strategy for
18:00
maintaining morale helping people look to the Future and making sure that people know they have a place in the
18:07
future of the organization people will be looking to see how they cut their colleagues retreated it's a huge test of
18:14
your employment relations actually to sit you know to go take people through a
18:20
redundancy program and people will be looking to see how their friends their colleagues were treated because that
18:26
would be a reflection on um how are they are valued in the organization as well so it's critically important for you to
18:33
in moving on as an organization um train and support line managers finally can't emphasize this enough I've
18:41
already said how they're the first protocol can have a real effect on them
18:46
in terms of their health and well-being but they need the information because they will be faced with a lot of
18:51
questions they might be part of the redundancy situation as well but they need guidance they need support
18:58
finally I just want to say that compliance and compassion can go hand in
19:04
hand um I'm not in any way playing down how challenging a redundancy or
19:09
restructuring program can be and you might not be able to influence the final outcome of
19:15
um what happens in terms of job Cuts but how you handle it will have a lasting Legacy not only on the people who are
19:21
leaving and how they can move on but on your own Workforce and your organization and it is possible to do it well
19:29
and we've got lots of resources to help you do that thank you
19:35
great thank you ever so much Rachel I think you've really set the context well for us there and I think what came
19:41
through for me from your presentation was the importance of not forgetting that we're dealing with people here
19:47
and I think that's a key theme that that flows really nicely into Maddie's
19:52
um session so I'm going to hand over to Dr Maddie Stevens who is the senior
19:57
lecturer in HRM at Liverpool John Moore's University so thank you very much Maddie thank you very much Jill and
20:05
Rachel um so as just introdu um introduced before my passion is about finding
20:12
solutions to mitigate the negative impact of redundancies on organizations
20:17
but also very much on the individuals
20:23
thank you Christian so um dispositioning faces a reminder
20:29
for what is redundancy as demarcated in law and essentially a redundancy occur
20:37
um if the employer is ceased or intend to see the organization or the business so this means business closure or
20:44
perhaps a part of the business that may be closing down and it could be a particular roles that are no longer
20:51
required due to a merger acquisition duplication of roles or just uh the
20:56
seizing or diminishing requirement in business as we're currently seeing within the economic downturn
21:04
thank you Christian so why do organizations Implement
21:09
redundancies um it's a very popular human resource management and also change management strategy that's been
21:15
used for the last few decades and their knee job reaction typically is to drive
21:21
costs um immediate cost reductions are what's perceived by organizations as the
21:28
benefit of redundancies um often driven to increase levels of
21:33
efficiency productivity profitability and competitiveness within the
21:38
marketplace and quite often it's also driven by automation where humans are
21:44
replaced by our automated Services thank you
21:49
so there's no surprise but um during covert we've seen a spike in the UK of
21:55
an increase in redundancies the first Spike you see there is doing the financial crash of
22:01
2008-2009 but you can see in the UK during covet it's reached a a ridiculous
22:08
height of 14.5 in a thousand people being made redundance in the three in a
22:13
three-month period within the UK thank you Christian
22:20
um just from another perspective here you see the red line is the impact of covid-19
22:26
um and the the reaching a peak they are 16 compared to the Blue Line during the
22:33
global financial crash globally we saw 244 million jobs being
22:39
lost due to redundancies during the covid-19 pandemic
22:45
so we then move on to look at what's currently happening in with redundancies it's important to remember that
22:52
everybody in the organization is impacted by redundancies firstly we have the victims who are the employees who
23:00
leave the organization who are unfortunate enough to to lose their jobs then we have the survivors who remain in
23:08
the organization after the program is complete we also then have a new group called The semi-survivors which are
23:14
employees that were first victims in other words they may have been put at risk or even made redundant and then
23:21
rehired and became survivors or maybe redeployed somewhere else in the organization
23:27
um quite often also organizations dismiss employees for reason of redundancies and
23:33
then realize they need employees back and then we hire them and then finally the group here today is our redundancy
23:40
invoice which is typically managers and HR professionals who are entrusted with
23:45
the role of implementing redundancies often and over overlooked population that's incredibly
23:52
important to the success thank you so what's currently happening post
23:59
covert there was an increase in work and employment and now with the new economic situation we see first the tech Giants
24:06
that's all in the last couple of weeks announced major redundancies Facebook
24:11
meta 11 000 employees being removed globally then Twitter and the same with
24:17
global redundancies being announced also heavily critiqued for they a lack of
24:23
compassion with how they implementing redundancies and we then look at the next slide of
24:30
retail being impacted um duals going into two stages of
24:36
redundancy first 1 600 employees and now the next round looking at senior
24:42
directors thank you Christian and they're made.com also entered into Administration with
24:50
320 jobs um being made redundant now merging with next who's looking at the next level of
24:57
redundancies so multiple redundancy programs being implemented which is
25:04
really quite intimidating and scary and creating job insecurity across the board
25:11
and finally the next one um which um which has come out recently is Royal
25:17
Maine Royal Mail who plans 5000 redundancies and it's also been the
25:22
related strikes to that and in this week HSBC has also announced redundancies
25:27
within the UK alone so significant worries all along because as we see this
25:33
happening in the media you know we naturally wonder about how is this impacting in your own environment and
25:40
your own job so um it's important to focus on um
25:46
sorry to say I've got big light shining on me there sorry about that light
25:51
shining engine complain so if we look at the symptoms of Survivor syndrome so these are the people who stay in the
25:58
organization there's no surprises here but they have increased workload because colleagues have left so they have to
26:04
pick up one two rolls maybe three sometimes they have guilt that they experience because sometimes they feel
26:12
um but why have a colleague had to go perhaps with a new young family or a new
26:18
house they've built and they feel guilty thinking that person were more suitable or deserved to stay they also feel Envy
26:26
sometimes people want to leave they may be close to retirement and having a
26:31
large settlement and a larger settlement that they are Keen to get due to years
26:37
of service and they are jealous that they they have to stay and their colleagues get to go so I'm not going to
26:44
go through each one but there's a range of emotion that is left in the organization that we as HR professionals
26:51
need to manage um including this job insecurity depression fear and anxiety
26:58
thank you Christian so what is the impact on redundancy
27:03
voice so this is HR professionals um the impact is a combination of what
27:10
victims experience so resentment anger but also what survivors experience
27:15
because essentially we are survivors um but we also feel the fear the
27:20
frustration guilt anger disappointment and often embarrassment that we are in a
27:27
situation from a business perspective they could be shock and envy and blame
27:32
so a roller coaster of emotion that HR professionals need to deal with and it's
27:37
that's very important as Rachel pointed out that the The Compassion remains with
27:42
the people who's entrusted with this responsibility thank you
27:49
so the importance of your role and when you're implementing redundancies the research has indicated that you can have
27:56
a significant impact on the success of the redundancies not only by showing
28:02
compassion towards the people who leave but also towards the future success of
28:07
the business so the way it's being implemented the way you communicate redundancies but also protect the
28:14
leaders and redundancy invoice who has to deal with this difficult change
28:20
management process can have significantly positive impacts for the organization
28:25
thank you so what's focus on the support you can
28:31
give employees think about being calm encourage them to move on
28:37
redundancy employee victims experience this similar grief curve
28:43
um going through shock denial so try and help them move on through the curve as best as possible and the reason why this
28:50
is important for HR professionals is if you can help them move on it also helps
28:56
you as an implementer by removing your own guilt by seeing them through the
29:01
process thank you Christian um support for survivors Rachel is
29:08
touched on this already so I'm not going to go for all of them but think about counseling sessions how can you help
29:14
them from an emotional perspective how can you help them with an increased workload
29:20
um it's important to reward and recognize people that remain in the organization and it doesn't always have
29:27
to be financially driven to recognize people thank you
29:33
and then very importantly how do we support each other now my research has clearly indicated that there's a strong
29:39
partnership between HR and management a real collegiance and collaboration that can come out from implementing
29:46
redundancies together and it's important that in this Ivory Tower as often seen
29:52
we support one another through the stress of managing redundancies and
29:57
often very difficult who you can share information with because of the nature of confidentiality but within HR
30:05
management you can bounce ideas of one another share the unpleasant experiences that you may be going through the good
30:12
experiences you're exp going through support groups are really essential in
30:17
helping us counseling is not just there for victims and survivors they're also there for HR
30:23
professionals use redundancy veterans people who have implemented redundancies
30:28
a few times that tend to be more resilient to experiencing the stress and
30:33
and keep a proximity to the victims in other words if you have to make really close colleagues redundant try and get
30:40
another person involved to take away that emotional drain on yourself of course planning is critical during
30:47
redundances not only to focus on law but also on the overall process thank you Christian
30:55
um I just wanted to share an eight-step strategic redundancy implementation model that I've designed that focus on
31:03
refocusing the organization how to reorganize it and finally how to rebuild
31:09
I'm not going to go through each step but it may be really helpful if you
31:14
aren't unfortunate position um to to implement redundancies at this time and please draw on it and feel free
31:21
to use it thank you and finally this is all
31:26
um coming from my book that's come out this year so if you need any further help please uh feel free to email me I'm
31:33
very happy to um offer survive advice for anybody that needs that so thank you very much
31:44
great thank you ever so much Maddie for sharing your research with us and really helpful to think in terms of the
31:50
different groups that that can be impacted within a redundancy situation and the best support we can then provide
31:57
of course for for each of those groups which came across strongly in your presentation so thank you very much
32:03
um just a reminder uh to our audience that if you have any questions that have um Arisen from Maddie's presentation or
32:10
from Rachel's presentation please do type them into the the Q a box and you don't need to wait to the end if you
32:16
would like to post them up as we go then please do um but for now I'm going to hand over to
32:22
Katie Obi who is the chief people officer at B Marie who is going to build on Rachel and Maddie's presentation
32:29
um talking about her experiences of managing change so thank you very much for joining us Katie thank you so much
32:36
Jill and what fabulous resources um we and information has already been provided today by Rachel and Maddie and
32:44
really really excellent things that will help anyone going through this kind of um this kind of situation maybe as a
32:52
little bit of background so I've only been at BMW for a couple of months so we haven't been through this process with
32:57
beamery but um my previous organizations that I've been with I've always worked
33:02
in organizations that are going through a massive transformation agenda and and I've worked for a number of
33:08
organizations that are private equity-backed I've been at organizations that have quite a significant M A agenda
33:14
ones that are going through Rapid growth and scale ups and ones that are actually coming through the other cycle of
33:20
business as well so restructuring and winding down and a lot of offshoring a
33:25
lot of Outsourcing and and of course working through economic impacts and as
33:31
as Rachel talked about some of the events that have happened over the the past few years I think the Collins
33:37
Dictionary put in Perma crisis as it's word of the year and um I mean from an
33:43
HR standpoint it really feels like like we're lurching from one crisis to another right now so for anyone who's on
33:49
the call right now who is going through this I I feel with you and for you and
33:54
it has been a really difficult um past few years and it looks like the next couple of years are going to be
34:00
difficult too so um one thing that I I will say is look after yourself and look after your team
34:07
and it is really important we are the ones who need to stay resilient through
34:12
this and as Maddie said you know there are impacts on us and our teams too we have to put our best foot forward to try
34:18
and give people the best experience we can going through this and we can only do that if we also put our own oxygen
34:24
mask on first and I also think there is no such thing as a good redundancy process and the
34:31
only thing is the only good redundancy process is when you don't have to do it but there are ways that you can do it
34:36
spectacularly badly um which mean that you have such an impact on the organizational
34:42
um and and what it means is you know often when organizations go through
34:47
um an organizational change or go through a round of redundancies they think very carefully about who is going to stay in the organization and who is
34:54
going to leave and and often go down to the very minimum Workforce that they can
34:59
to do what the business needs to do and to to function through through a particular period And if if you get it
35:06
wrong all of your strongest people that you're relying on to get through that process will opt out and they will leave
35:12
they will see how other people are treated they will feel the fear and the anxiety and the anxiety that Maddie was
35:17
talking about and we and and then a business will find it really hard to
35:23
recover from that and one of the other things is recovering out of of a crisis is just as important for the stability
35:29
of an organization as an acting quickly when a crisis is it has started to be
35:36
identified so really treating people as Rachel said with dignity respect and kindness and so so important
35:45
um we also I think Rachel also touched on communication as well and one of the the pieces of advice I would have is try
35:52
wherever possible to minimize surprises so there always has to be a Communications plan that builds
35:58
gradually with when the business starts to notice that there are impacts on the organization's financials or the
36:05
organization's strategy that might need to change to Pivot in a particular crisis and and be as transparent as you
36:11
can around that with employees so they know what's happening and also be transparent with all of the other things
36:17
that you're trying to do before you have to go down a redundancy route Rachel Graves a really great
36:24
um ideas of what what you and your organizations can look at in terms of alternatives to redundancies and I would
36:30
say try and be as um as transparent as you can around this you don't want to scare people off of course you don't
36:36
want to panic people but if people have seen that you have thought about every single other alternative first before
36:43
going down this route that will mean that you'll have a lot more trust and a lot more buy-in as you're going through
36:48
this process the other thing is um that's really important is around
36:53
kindness as well and Rachel and Maddie both both talked a lot about this and compassion and empathy go a really a
37:01
really long way around this I think none of us have escaped seeing things out on
37:07
social media about um Mass firing text messages and zoom calls and that kind of thing and of
37:14
course the answer to that is don't ever do that um but think about the person think
37:19
about the person's situations and the impacts not everyone is impacted in the same way through this and understand
37:26
where someone is at from a human perspective and try to give as much support as possible
37:31
um we don't all have the opportunities to be able to handle um redundancies in the way that we've
37:37
seen some companies do it with massive Severance packages and that that's quite I wouldn't say an easy way of doing it
37:44
this is never easy but that's a really nice way if you have the cash to be able to do that and that's great but lot of
37:51
organizations when they get to the stage of this decision are doing so for cash purposes and don't have the ability to
37:57
be able to offer more than what is what is required from a statutory standpoint but there are other ways that we can
38:04
offer support through this and Rachel I think it was you that mentioned about eaps outplacement Services is another
38:12
good option if you have an internal recruiting team get them involved to be able to help employees who are leaving
38:18
the company to uh you know to brush up their CVS to tap into different recruiter networks that are out there my
38:25
current company actually before I joined so I can take no credit for this they uh during covert they set up a portal where
38:32
we could help to connect employees with other organizations and with our
38:37
customers as well and I think always trying to help someone land the next opportunity is it goes a long way as
38:44
well in terms of helping to reduce the impact on people I would say always talk to people about
38:50
how they wish to leave as well how do they want to say goodbye to their teams though those kind of moments of closure
38:56
can be really important to people and and then the Survivor guilt is is real
39:02
and Maddie you know great research on that too and some really good good talking points I think working with
39:09
people and both acknowledging what they're going through and the emotions that they're feeling working through
39:14
working through that and acknowledging that that's the end is really important to expect that the day after this is
39:20
announced someone is working at 100 performance and and productivity they've
39:26
just you know whipped up all of the um all of the work that has been left behind through colleagues that are no
39:31
longer with them that that is not kind um and it's not realistic so actually
39:38
um acknowledging where people are at and the process that people are going through spending time listening spending
39:44
if if um encouraging your leaders to be out there talking to as many people and
39:50
being as visible and close as possible and also thinking about how workload will be managed and and how
39:57
um giving people potentially a little bit of time off to be able to to process some of these things or a slightly
40:02
reduced workload and will help people be more resilient through this
40:08
and some things to avoid if possible I'm not saying whether I have witnessed this
40:14
or not that she'll uh remain um a secret but some things to to avoid
40:19
so I would always try to avoid a Friday to announce any of this kind of thing or to um uh to to start a consultation
40:27
process because people need people to talk to and if they can't talk to anyone from the HR team or from their
40:34
leadership over that weekend period people will immediately jump to the worst possible conclusions and it will
40:40
be very stressful for people so do it so that there's time to be able to have one-to-one discussions with people as
40:46
quickly as possible without leaving people to to Stew on the news um same thing with doing things before
40:53
major holidays if you can possibly avoid it do not do things before a major holiday and the other thing that I would
41:00
also say is try wherever possible to contain what's happening to happen once
41:05
across an organization don't have different departments doing things at different times and wherever possible if
41:12
you have to do this do it once um and and don't do it so that you have to to do the same thing every every
41:18
couple of months or anything like that because it becomes very difficult for people to
41:24
go through that cycle again and again and people will your strongest people will opt out from that environment
41:31
I do train and support your managers and I always try to script my managers wherever possible
41:38
um do role plays with managers as well especially the ones that you've never seen in that process we often assume
41:45
that it's our more Junior managers who are not used to to doing these conversations but
41:51
um I I would say be cautious with that assumption because I've seen a lot of senior people as well who have never had
41:57
to do that either someone on their team has had to do it or they've never been they've been in a part of the a business
42:02
or an industry where they haven't had to do that and they've moved so um always assume that someone could do
42:08
with more training and someone can do with more support going through it and that will help you out and also think
42:14
really carefully about who is the right manager to deliver the news it may not be the person's immediate next
42:19
supervisor it might be someone they might have worked for somebody um in the fairly recent past that they
42:26
have a really good rapport and relationship with and that may be the kind of option to have the conversation
42:31
with that lesson um and then one of the things that I think is more
42:37
recent as well is around social media so we've seen a lot of things go out on
42:44
LinkedIn where um the process and the communications around a redundancy is
42:51
actually published on LinkedIn or on social media it can make National media as well so always look through your your
42:59
Communications and your approach and what you're offering through this process with the lens that there's a
43:06
high chance that someone will publicize this on social media and it will have very public attention and I I think it's
43:13
really important to be aware that that can happen and the other thing that we also tend to see is your glass door will
43:19
take a massive beating going through this too so also working out how to
43:24
um you know respond in a kind and compassionate way around this how to make sure that you're talking with new
43:30
hires in in the organization that are maybe parts of the organization that are less impacted by by the actions that
43:37
you're taking and you have to be able to balance out some of that messaging and own some of it too in terms of what what
43:44
has happened so those would be my my main pieces of advice um around uh the the journey that we're
43:50
going on um and as I say take time to look after yourself I never sleep before these kind
43:56
of um these kind of events I'm sure a lot of you are the same as well and I always tell myself that if it
44:02
isn't hard then we're not the right people to do it because if we're finding it harder it's because we understand what's happening to to people and that
44:10
helps us to be able to come from a place of empathy kindness respect and dignity
44:16
thank you thank you very much Katie for sharing
44:22
that with us I love the point that you end on about empathy kindness and dignity
44:28
um thank you for so generously sharing your experience your Insight with us I think there's some real practical takeaways
44:34
um and food for thought there so thank you very much um I'm now going to pass over to Alan
44:40
Lewis who is a partner at Constantine law and he's going to pick up on some of the legal aspects of some of the issues
44:47
raised um in this webinar so far so over to you Ellen thank you very much Jill and there was
44:54
wonderful presentations there by Rachel Maddie and Katie some great points I'll try and touch on some of them so first
44:59
slide please change the slide yeah thank you that's
45:06
great I think the most important piece of advice I can give you from all my experience in dealing with the duns and
45:11
situations from a legal aspect is to plan I'll give you one example in my
45:17
experience I was once required by a a company in the retail space to advise
45:23
them on closing 103 branches throughout the UK and funnily enough three years
45:29
later we had to close another 108 having said we would be closing no more now I
45:35
spent half a day in a hotel with the head of HR weeks before that started
45:40
probably three or four weeks before that started planning out how this process was going to happen
45:45
and the results of that with a very experienced head of HR who followed initial advice and only touched base
45:52
with me when she needed to was that we were able to exit across those two exercises over a thousand
45:59
people in a way in which only two individuals made a claim to an employment tribunal and they were both
46:06
settling aggregate for less than five thousand pounds it was incredible results there wasn't much trouble
46:11
causing it was because it was planned properly so that's fundamental now I've
46:17
already looked at the reasons for redundancy it's a close of a business a close of a place of work or reduce need
46:23
for employees to carry out work of a particular kind I just like to touch on one point there remember if you're
46:29
moving premises if you're moving to New premises it doesn't look as though you're going to lose people but there is
46:35
a possibility that some of your staff may not want to move it may be too far to travel so you could have a redundancy
46:41
situation so take advice and plan for possible consultation clearly if you've
46:47
got more than 20 employees who've been required to move then in theory it's possible that all 20 will or all of them
46:54
will say we're not moving and therefore you've got to Collective redundancy situation so don't overlook that
46:59
when I'm talking about Collective redundancy if we're making 20 or more individuals redundant at One S one
47:07
establishment within um a 90-day period then we'd have to have a 30-day consultation period with
47:14
Union or elected employee Representatives before the first of those dismissals takes effect it is 100
47:20
or more employees then we have the 45-day consultation now it's very
47:26
interesting here isn't it we've talked about looking after survivors those who are going to stay in the organization
47:31
unusually the law on redundancy doesn't look at this situation in the same way
47:37
that the law on duty for transfer undertakings does in a cheaper situation we will have to consult with maybe our
47:45
existing employees to as to how the changing work pattern is going to affect them when we bring
47:51
new people in or if we're losing people there may be more work to be done by the existing survivors and there's a
47:57
requirement in law to consult with those survivors but that's not the same requirements in redundancy situation
48:04
initially they will have to consult with the workforce in general that they're at risk but then the then the consultation
48:10
will focus more on those who are selected and identified as provisionally redundant
48:15
so um remember we have Collective consultation with those numbers I've
48:22
talked about with Representatives but even if we have Collective consultation we still have to consult individually
48:28
with any employees before they made redundant it's really important the general requirements are that we
48:34
must consult at the formative stage so when we are contemplating when we realize that the men will have to
48:39
redundances we have to start a consultation early we must provide enough information for employees to
48:46
raise issues with us that they might want to consult about and we must must give them enough time to consult apart
48:52
from the 30 and the 45-day consultation periods I've mentioned there is no fixed time period in law for Consulting with
48:59
individuals it's just what a tribunal would say is reasonable and reasonable
49:04
can be short is a couple of weeks and that's common in small businesses um I would advise on having a general
49:13
meeting with staff to inform them that there are risk of redundancies and then once selection has been carried out
49:18
we've identified who's likely to be made redundant I would advise with them and get the
49:23
least two individual if not three individual meetings with those people to give them a chance to consult properly
49:29
otherwise it looks like a sham exercise and from an industrial relations point of view we're not treating our people
49:35
with respect now come on to looking at the pools we have to identify the pools of people
49:41
we're going to select from and this is difficult but there's a wide breadth of
49:47
discretion to each employer there is no fixed and fast way of selecting the
49:52
correct pool it's whatever a reasonable employer might think is a reasonable
49:58
pull so for example we may have we may want to lose for example
50:03
um some receptionists but it might not just be the people who
50:09
carry out the reception work that are in the pool they may do some typing work some secretarial work so we we may have
50:15
to pull them with some other secretaries because good interchangeable skills it's sometimes is a difficult Challenge and
50:21
it's one that you might want to consult with with lawyers and HR professionals about uh to get that right
50:28
next slide please looking at bumping so bumping is not obligatory but sometimes can be seen as
50:34
unfair if you don't do it so bumping these away we've identified we need to lose a particular role
50:40
but we might not necessarily make redundant the person or people who do that role we might move somebody else
50:46
into doing into doing that role uh and and therefore and therefore somebody
50:53
somebody else's bumped it affects uh bumped redundancy uh it's not obligatory
50:59
to consider bumping but there has been cases where the process was found to be unfair because the employer did not give
51:05
that consideration so so it's something to look at um if we're selecting from the pools to
51:12
identify which people we're going to make redundant it's important to draw up fair selection criteria and score them
51:18
fairly as objective as possible many years ago we use life for a lasting first out you can still use it as a
51:25
criteria but it must be mixed in with lots of other criteria because it could be discriminatory
51:31
apart from the scoring exercise we may have selection interviews so if we've got a reorganization and there's some
51:37
new jobs created rather than scoring people we might invite candidates to
51:42
apply and then we interview much easier to select fairly when we interview because it's very subjective downtown
51:49
individual performed interview remember maternity is a special case if
51:55
whilst a ladies on maternity a redundancy situation arises
52:00
that employee isn't is is entitled to First refusal in effect to any
52:06
alternative jobs that are offered it's it's a case of positive discrimination the government is looking at extending
52:11
that now extending that period not for just somebody's on maternity but for somebody from the moment they notify
52:18
their employer that they are pregnant until six months after they return from Return to Eve
52:24
um redundancy pay check with us in contractual enhanced entitlement also at
52:29
the outset check whether you've got a contractual redundancy process that needs to be followed suitable alternative jobs
52:36
um if you offer an employee a suitable alternative job in the unreasonably refuse it they'll lose their entitles
52:42
redundancy pay they are entitled to a trial period of up to four weeks and all this comes down to unfair
52:48
dismissal in terms of the law are we dealing with dismissals fairly in other words is it genuinely redundancy if it
52:55
is then it's a potentially Fair reason and have we followed a fair and reasonable process in the way we've gone
53:01
about carrying out the redundances remember that even if we get it wrong some of you might have a claim but if we
53:08
can show that the process itself wasn't quite fair but the end result would have been the same had we followed a fair
53:14
process there might be what we call a polki named after a case of pulky reduction compensation in other words it
53:20
would have made no difference and the compensation would be nominal um should you offer a right of appeal
53:26
when somebody's dismissed redundancy there's no requirements in law to do it but I would say yes you should because
53:33
it could be looked at at a one small piece in the overall picture of fairness and really that's all I have to say I
53:39
want to leave time for questions thank you
53:44
thank you very much Alan for sharing that with us and also for for joining us for the Q a section as well much
53:51
appreciated um please do continue to post any questions or thoughts that you might
53:57
have on the Q a tab um I'm just looking at the questions now
54:03
um we have one which I think is probably for you Alan yeah if I read it out here
54:08
um if you feel due to a restruct sorry if you feel due to a restructure due to
54:14
financial efficiencies what's the ruling around apprentices and the audience member posing the
54:19
question has said I see you can make an apprentice redundant on some sites but then conflicting information that they
54:26
are protected do you have any thoughts there please Alan yeah I mean they are
54:32
protected in some sense because it it an apprentice remember is setting up their career and and terminating that
54:38
apprenticeship early in circumstances where they may struggle to find another one could be the end of their of their
54:43
training um but they're not that they don't have any preferential treatment if there's a
54:48
need to reduce employees they're just you would consult with them like any other employee and if you've got a fair
54:55
reason for for dismissal and you've consulted and you've lots of Alternatives you would do your level best to ensure they could continue their
55:02
apprenticeship but they don't have absolute protection that's the best I've asked again
55:09
great thank you very much Alan there and a question for for Katie if that's
55:15
okay Katie and for any other of our panelists who'd like to chip in on this one
55:20
um you mentioned really interestingly around encouraging leaders to be out and about talking to people
55:27
um and role plays with managers are there any other tips about how we can best work with with leaders and managers
55:33
to be helping create this compassionate workplace obviously HR can't do this on their own we need the whole business to
55:39
be creating this culture that's a great question and I think one of the challenges is if you're
55:46
trying to get them to to do some of these things right now before this process and they're not used to doing it you have a you know a big uphill battle
55:52
in terms of lots of work to be to be done so I would say you know the the more we can invest in our leaders and
55:59
our managers and the the the easier any kind of difficult process is going to be
56:05
so um if you haven't started yet um start soon and it will pay off in dividends and some of the things that I
56:12
think are really important is you know anyone who's working in a business partnering function I I always feel that
56:18
our jobs are to make our leaders and our managers be the best version of themselves that they possibly can be so
56:25
um helping to talk things through in terms of different situations with them and it's always really helpful during
56:32
these kind of situations to block out lots of time to be able to help answer
56:37
questions that they have help equip them with FAQs that they can help to help to
56:43
answer as I say lots of training lots of face time with them and FaceTime can be Zoom calls as well it doesn't have to be
56:49
in person and where you're really helping to answer their questions their
56:55
fears their anxieties they're going through through a lot of a lot of emotions and have a lot of questions too
57:00
so spending spending the time with them encouraging and reminding people to be out there one of the things that we do
57:06
as human beings I think is if we know that there is bad news coming we start to withdraw from our employees in in the
57:14
organization at a time that they need us most and when I say we I mean our leaders and our managers as well so even
57:20
prompting and reminding people that now more than ever they need to be more
57:25
visible if they're in an office they need to walk the floor and build those relationships if they're not in an
57:31
office is even more important to set up one-to-one time to skip level meetings and really get a good read and other
57:38
things that I've encouraged managers and leaders to do which has worked quite well is set up listening sessions you
57:44
know throughout a change process and it could be a like an open Office hours where people can just come with
57:50
questions if you use slack and you're more of a kind of tech oriented company doing I can ask me anything on slack at
57:57
a certain time you know during each week weekly while you're going through some of the changes really helps and and you
58:04
know as HR professionals you can be on that supporting the the leaders and the managers to um during those processes I
58:11
hope that helps that does Katie thank loads of practical tips there thank you very much for
58:17
sharing that one and then we have one final question we've only got a couple of minutes but I
58:22
said another question come through um maybe this is for you Alan um is there any relationship between
58:28
redundancy pay and pension is that something that you might be able to answer yeah I can answer that for you
58:35
thank you very much Joe um redundancy paying pension let's see so when you made redundant you'll have
58:42
to be given your notice so if you're if you're required to work out your notice you paid your salary as
58:48
normal for the notice period and of course that will include the employer pension contribution and the employee's
58:55
pension contribution will be uh deducted from that as well uh but other than that
59:00
no you you should you should be paid what you would do for your notice period
59:06
That's the connection there's no the redundancy pay element itself the statute redundancy pay uh
59:12
there's no relevance to to the pension that's it okay thank you very much Alan thank you
59:19
great I think we've tackled most of the questions that were posted um so thank you very much
59:25
um and we're coming to the end of the webinar now so the the last thing that's for me is to wrap up
59:31
um the session today um firstly I'd like to give a big thank you to all of our speakers for sharing
59:37
their knowledge and expertise with us so thank you very much for joining us today
59:42
um also to our audience we're posting your questions posting your comments uh thank you very much for your contributions
59:49
um and also of course to the cipd team behind the webinar uh for setting this up today
59:55
the final things from me to mention is the webinar will be available on demand
1:00:00
later today along with the slides so feel free to re-watch the webinar
1:00:08
um we'll have future webinars listed on our website as well that you might be interested in and then lastly please
1:00:14
don't forget cipd's well-being support for members in UK and Ireland with a
1:00:19
free 24 7 telephone helpline staffed by qualified therapists and provided by
1:00:25
award-winning workplace well-being provider Health assured so thank you
1:00:30
very much and look forward to seeing you on our webinar again soon