Employment and Society: Redundancies at the Workplace - Term Paper Example

The employer can also eliminate the work that the employee does. Another aspect of redundancies can arise when the number of people doing a particular job is to be reduced but not necessarily eliminated. Redundancies can cause significant damage to an organization and must be eliminated at all costs. The first most effective alternative to redundancies is recruitment freezes. Organizations are seen to freeze their recruitments at a time when existing jobs can be endangered. It is seen that during the time of recession in 2008, the majority of the organizations stopped conducting new recruitments instead of cutting down workforces or cutting down salaries.

Job cuts are not considered a suitable option for employers as they can have numerous serious implications. Job cuts primarily spread anxiety and terror the workplace and instill insecurity in the minds of people who are retained too. Thus instead of cutting down jobs, organizations must rather seek to cease recruitment activities temporarily till the time when conditions improve. Organizations can also be seen to stop or reduce overtime of employees. This is regarded as the most straightforward way of cutting down costs.

During a time when there is reduced demand for the company’s services or products, it is considered best to reduce overtime levels of employees. In other words, organizations can consider downsizing the magnitude of work in the form of products and services (Tarren, Potter & Moore, 2009, p.7-9). Apart from the above strategies, it is also seen that organizations offer early retirement to people on a voluntary basis. By doing this the problems of redundancies can be handled to a substantial extent.

In this way, only those who are willing to take retirement can resign without exerting any extra pressure to the employees. This can be done without endangering the present employees’ positions and cutting down unnecessary and redundant job positions.