Redundancy requires effective consultation with employees and their representatives.
The laws that impact on, and around, consultation on redundancy can be difficult to understand and interpret especially in real workplace scenarios for the uninitiated.
Employee representatives can be unfamiliar with the law and their specific roles and responsibilities during the process.
Joan Pettingill, director and head of employment law and HR services, looks at how Wake Smith Solicitors can provide advice and training.
“Most redundancy situations require effective consultation with employees and/or their representatives.
“Where 20 or more redundancies are contemplated, generally speaking, appropriate representatives are needed. If there is no union in place then these representatives are often elected.
“No employer at this time can afford to risk upsetting their workforce further by failing to support their elected representatives properly.
“Additionally, providing training to the representatives means that they know the task that is required of them by the employer.
“It can make the consultation process go much more smoothly from the employer’s perspective and the employee’s perspective if representatives have been trained and understand their role and how to carry it out.
“The laws on, and around, consultation on redundancy can be hard to understand, especially in real workplace situations and be unfamiliar for employee representatives.
“This can often be combined with an employee representative having to take on an unofficial counselling and support role in response to worries from across the workforce.
“Therefore it is essential that any organisation embarking on, or considering, redundancies ensures they give adequate and advance training to the employee representatives.”
Employee representatives can be concerned about lacking in knowledge about:
• Their role in a redundancy or reorganisation situation
• Contracts and their variations
• Committing to contract changes on behalf of colleagues and workers
• Feeding back to colleagues
• Reporting back to management and making informed judgements and decisions
Joan added: “We aim to improve the employee representatives knowledge of redundancy related legislation and good practice, and develop their skills and confidence to improve their effectiveness in this role.
“This helps the process go more smoothly for both the employer and the employees. All of our trainers are ILM qualified so our training is in plain English and not full of legal jargon.
“We look at essential technical and soft skills including understanding redundancies, the law and good practice; understanding what is involved in consultation and negotiations, developing personal effectiveness; managing assumptions and prejudices; active listening and observational skills; meetings, counselling and support; and reporting back.”
Wake Smith can also provide prior consultancy and best practice on all elements of the redundancy process, the election process and statutory guidelines.
For further information on training for elected employee representatives from all business types and sectors, contact Joan Pettingill at [email protected] or call 0114 266 6660.
