Redundancy Consulting and Procedure - Assignment Example

? Human resources assignment Human resources case study Introduction Redundancy procedure According to employment rights Act 1996, redundancy is acceptable if the employer has ceased or intends to cease the business that the employee provides labor (Gilmore and Williams 2012). In addition, redundancy is acceptable if requirements or conditions of carrying out the work in the business have ceased or expected to cease. The employer must demonstrate that the employee job will no longer exist (Gennard and Judge, 2005). The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) helps is solving employment disputes and issuing guidelines on redundancy (ACAS 2013). ACAS encourages employees to appeal against unfair dismissals and employers can only lay off workers if there is an existing contractual agreement between he employer and the employer. Accordingly, the redundant temporary employees are entitled to statutory guaranteed payments that include up to five days pay in any three-month period (CIPD 2013). ACAS advocates for an ad-hoc approach, formal policies or formal agreements with trade unions as the possible approaches of implementing redundancies in the organization. The fixed term employment contracts than naturally end will be excluded from the obligations to engage in collective consultations (ACAS 2013). The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) require fair selection of employees to be put on redundancy and collective consultations before the redundancy (CIPD 2013). According to CIPD, redundancy rights and obligations are governed by the employment rights act 1996, the Trade union and labour relations (consolidation) Act 1992, protection of employment regulations 1995, collective redundancies and the transfer of undertaking (amendment) regulations 1999 and finally collective redundancies (amendment) regulations 2006. CIPD educates its members on consultations during redundancy, taxation, collective redundancies, redundancy top-up payments and employees’ right to notice of redundancy and redundancy pay including some time off to seek for alternative employment (Gilmore and Williams 2012). Redundancy can be either compulsory or non-compulsory through encouraging employees to seek early retirement. The concerned employees are eligible for certain rights such as redundancy pay, a reasonable notice period, discussions with the employer and some time off to seek alternative employment (Gilmore and Williams 2012). The redundancy must be fair and discriminatory practices such as age, disability or gender cannot be utilized as the criteria for redundancy (Gilmore and Williams 2012). The redundancy entails more than 20 employees thus Dan Findale must adhere to the redundancy procedure outlined in ACAS code of practice on redundancy consultation process. Accordingly, protection of employment Act 1977-2007 requires the employers to enter in to consultations with the employees at least 30 days before the first redundancy occurs. In addition, the employees (provision of information and consultation) Act 2006 requires the employers with at least 50 employees to enter in to consultations with employees before any changes in workplace including the proposals for collective redundancy (ACAS 2013). According to the case study, Dan Findale intends to make the 23 employees redundant thus, redundancy is just a dismissal that is not related to the individual employee or the capability of the individual employee, but an overall reorganization of the staff without recruiting new staff. Dan will have to justify his intentions of cost reduction in order to ensure the survival of the charity operations. Dan Findale must follow fair criteria in determining the employees to be made redundant. Some common criteria include last in, first out method that aims at preserving knowledge, skills and experience, staff appraisal rankings and asking for volunteers (Gilmore and Williams 2012). Unfair selection methods such as previous participation in industrial activities, disability, maternity-related grounds, requesting for flexible working hours or demanding better working conditions must be avoided. In this case, the law has outlined a standard dismissal procedure that starts by issuing the concerned employees with a notice outlining the reasons for redundancy (Gennard and Judge, 2005). In this case, Dan Findale must outline the possibility of reduction in charity funding due to government’s austerity measures and reductions in public spending that may affect the grants of the charity (Gennard and Judge, 2005). The next step will entail discussing the redundancy with affected employees to discuss the redundancy and making it known that the affected employees have a right to appeal the redundancy notice (Gilmore and Williams 2012). The Protection of employment Act and ACAS code of practice requires the employer to enter in to consultations with the employees before the actual redundancy. At the consultation, the employer must outline the reasons for the redundancy, the number of employees to be affected, the period of the redundancy, the selection criteria and method of aggregating the redundancy payments. The consultation period should be at least 30 days before the first redundancy if 20 to 99 proposed redundancies are involved and at least 45 days in cases where 100 or more redundancies are involved. The employer of continuing with consultations if an agreement is not attained within the minimum period. Dan Findale must discuss the ways in which employees were selected for redundancy and methods of calculating redundancy payments. Dan Findale must establish appeals procedure that aims at offering alternative duties or counseling the affected employees. Such affected employees have a statutory right to four weeks trial period in alternative work while those who have been in employment for at least two years are entitled to reasonable time to seek alternative job (Gilmore and Williams 2012). The redundancy procedure must identify the selection pool in a fair manner and depending on characteristics and descriptions of work. The wrong selection pool may lead to unfair suits for unfair dismissal. The selection pools include workers doing similar jobs, in same locations or same department. The employer is prohibited from using discriminatory selection criteria such as maternity leave, disability, or employees past involvement in trade union activities. The next step is to calculate the redundancy payments depending on number of years worked and average weekly pay. Only employees who have worked for at least two years qualify for redundancy payments and maximum years of employment of calculating redundancy payment calculation is 20 years (ACAS 2013). For each years of employment under the age of 22 years, the employee is entitled to half of the weekly pay. For each year of service between 22 years and 41 years, the employee is entitled to one week’s pay (Gennard and Judge, 2005). For each year of service over 41 years, the employee is entitled to one and half week’s pay. The Amendment to Pension Act 2004 grants the Secretary of State and North Ireland Department right to take action in estimating financial resources that employees may need in retirement and to ascertain the actions that may be undertaken in order to increase the financial resources that are available to the employee upon retirement (ACAS 2013). Dan Findale must also facilitate cash transfers of the employees whose pensionable employment has ceased due to redundancy (Gilmore and Williams 2012). Improving engagement and motivation Engagement entails fully involving the employees in their work through aligning of the individual employee goals and interests with the overall organisational strategy and goals. It involves physical, emotional and mental involvement of the employee in work in order to ensure high passion for work. Employee engagement will result to positive feelings about work, intellectual engagement in work and work-related improvements. CIPD asserts that engagement entails dedication, resilience and concentration at the work. On the other hand, motivation entails boosting employee morale through use of rewards, proper leadership, communication, training and development. Employers use either monetary rewards or non-monetary rewards such as recognition and additional training to motivate the employees (Lauby 2005). One of the differences between engagement and motivation is the engagement aims at enabling the employee to actively participate in work through use of discretion efforts unlike motivation that is pegged on rewards. Engagement mainly related to the attractiveness of the work environment such as relationships with managers, work-life balance and health and safety issues unlike motivation that mainly influences employee efforts due to certain nature of compensation (Lauby 2005). Engagement is intrinsic and entails personality traits, feelings, and patterns of behavior unlike motivation efforts like higher salaries that may be counter-productive to profitability of the company (Lauby 2005). In addition, engagement aims at enabling employees discover their strengths and weaknesses unlike motivation that only gears at increasing employee job performance and productivity. One of the ways of improving engagement is aligning the individual employee interests with the overall objectives of the organization (Lauby 2005). Accordingly, the management must have a genuine interest in the welfare of employees through enhancing the work-life balance. The management must remove all roadblocks that hinder individual achievement in the organization such as poor internal communication channels and poor task clarification (Lauby 2005). The organization must also employee feedback part of the cultural norms of the organization through implementing several performance review metrics that aim at engaging the employee efforts in attainment of the organizational goals (Lauby 2005). Another method of ensuring employee engagement is building mutual trust and excellent working relationships through implementing democratic leadership ideals and allowing employees to express their dissatisfaction with certain management decisions (Lauby 2005). The management must actively promote the organizational reputation through identifying the shred goals, values and beliefs in all communications to employees. Employees must have a sense of belonging and team spirit in order to ensure cooperation and collaboration in attaining the organizational objectives (Lauby 2005). The management can use both financial and non-financial incentives in boasting the morale of the employees (Lauby 2005). For instance, delegating authority and responsibility will ensure employees take more accountability for their work. Accordingly, the organization will have to improve the quality of the working environment by ensuring employees are free from risk of accidents or disasters that may occur in the workplace (Lauby 2005). The workers must have adequate protective clothing, enough working tools and processes must ensure risk of accidents is minimized. Another method of motivating employees will include provision of training, career advancement and promotion opportunities to the workers (Lauby 2005). In this case, the management must implement fair criteria of selecting employees for training and offer career growth opportunities. Training improves the work efficiency and effectiveness through enhancing the skills of the employee (Lauby 2005). Another motivating factor is job enrichment that will entail increasing the complexity of the job in order to satisfy the higher-level needs of the employee through adding a variety of tasks thus enabling the employee to attain self-esteem (Lauby 2005). Recognition for attainment of performance targets and positive reinforcement of acceptable behavior will also motive the employees (Lauby 2005). Some non-financial methods of reinforcing the positive behaviors include compliments, wall plaques, and commendation letters (Lauby 2005). Another motivating element that must be implemented by Caring for Children is provision of job security and tenure. The employees must be assured that they will continue working in the same position and will enjoy their health and social benefits as stipulated in the employment contracts (Lauby 2005). This is an essential motivating factor especially after the implementation of redundancy. Accordingly, the management can provide the employees with the criteria that will be used in rationalization of staff and adjusting surplus labor in the organization. Finally, other monetary motivating elements that can be implemented include bonuses and salary increases (Lauby 2005). Alternative methods of providing management training to the 20 operating managers The 20 managers work in different work site in different shifts and vary in their management experience, expertise and level. The management can utilize either on-the job training methods or off-the job training methods to train the 20 managers. The management must identify the training needs, prepare the training materials and identify the appropriate methods of training in order to meet the skills gap (Barrett 2003). On-the job training methods are cost-effective and avoid disruption of work in organization. One on-job training method that is effective is coaching the managers through enabling them focus on areas of weaknesses and improving performance (Saks, Haccoun and Belcourt 2010). Accordingly, mentoring the managers through closed supervision of more qualified executives will be effective in training the managers while working in the organization (Barrett 2003). Another technique that can be utilized is issuing is conducting demonstrations and issuing instructions to the managers while executing the same tasks. Accordingly, job rotation will enable each manager attain skills necessary in performing in various capacities and tasks in the organization (Barrett 2003). The other alternative method of training the 20 managers is through use of the off-the job training methods that can effectively train the 20 managers on new knowledge attitudes and behaviors is lecture method while the managers are off their shifts. Lecture method enhances the cognitive skills, listening capabilities and provides diverse knowledge on the management topic (Barrett 2003). The other off-job training method that can be utilized in training the managers is the case study method whereby each manager will be provided written materials that contain complex situations that are imagery of the day-to-day situations of the organization (Barrett 2003). This method intendeds to ensure than organizations forecast the future situations and managerial needs of the organization through enabling managers to have sound reasoning and analytical skills in tackling the future challenges (Saks, Haccoun and Belcourt 2010). Conferences can be used to review certain aspects pertaining the management and enable the managers gain ideas and experiences from more qualified experts in the field of management (Saks, Haccoun and Belcourt 2010). In addition, role-playing through requiring the 20 managers play different roles in a management case scenario will enable them gain useful insights and experience required in their duties (Barrett 2003). List of references: ACAS. 2013. “Redundancy consulting and procedure”, Available on 16th August, 2013 from http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4256. Barrett, Richard. 2003. Training, developing and motivating people. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes. CIPD. 2013. “Redundancy resource summary”, Available on 16th August, 2013 from http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/factsheets/redundancy.aspx. Gennard, John and Judge, Graham. 2005. Employee relations. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Gilmore, Sarah and Williams, Steve. 2012. Human resource management. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lauby, Sharlyn. 2005. Motivating employees. Alexandria: ASTD Press. Saks, Alan., Haccoun, Robert and Belcourt, Monica. 2010. Managing performance through training and development. Toronto: Nelson Education. Read More