Assisting employers with restructuring & redundancy
We provide a very unique offering to employers in business when it comes to restructure, redundancy and change management. We have both legal and human resources expertise at the same organisation. This means a very comprehensive but cost-effective solution can be tailored to the employer’s business needs.
There have been significant shifts in the law around restructure and redundancy. Older cases asserted that it was not the Court’s role to look at business decisions. This meant the employer had considerably more freedom to make changes than employers now do. New decided cases put the onus on the employer to show its decisions were both genuinely made (not for ulterior motives) and reasonable. This criteria means that the reasons for redundancy must stand up to scrutiny.
We have restructured a number of large organisations where the change was far reaching and complex and where the workforce was partially union affiliated. We also routinely assist with less complicated restructures involving smaller businesses and fewer affected employees and redundancies.
We know all the common pitfalls and how to avoid them. Perhaps the most prevalent issue that arises for employers that don’t seek expert assistance with restructuring and redundancy processes is that they fail to understand the obligation to redeploy. The Court has decided that, where a new role is created to replace an old role, an employee should be redeployed to the new role if it is within their capability with retraining. A failure to appreciate this issue can result in a personal grievance. We have robust processes to address concerns about redeployment.
A further common issue occurs when an employer fails to create a fair process to choose between employees in the same role where the number of roles is being reduced. We have comprehensive solutions that make sure you get the right people in the right roles.
The last pitfall worth noting is that, where an employer embarks on a restructuring process that is careless and doesn’t consider the right information, that employer is very vulnerable to personal grievance. An employer must be able to prove a proposal is reasonable. We know what information you need to gather and how to present it. Too many employers rely on bad PowerPoint presentations to explain complex change. This is a recipe for disaster. We have the experience to prepare and present proposals that withstand scrutiny and achieve the result an employer’s business needs.
If you need to make changes to your business, please contact us to discuss.