The word redundancy to a lay man is the way of downsizing the number of workforce in an organisation. According to Lewis 1993, cited in Sutherland, 1997, (p181) "redundancy from a legal perspective is a dismissal attribute wholly or mainly to either the actual or intended stoppage of business "be it temporary or permanent.
When viewed from the human resource management option, there is need to distinguish between various options because in practice, there are different strings attach to it which could be either, job redundancy and worker redundancy, and enforced redundancy and mitigated redundancy. Job redundancy is vanishing or withdrawal of a job, while worker redundancy is the inability on the part of the employing firm to offer new employment to the worker were job has become redundant (Sutherland 1997). In the case of enforced redundancy and mitigated redundancy according to Sutherland,1997, (p.188) the incident of worker redundancy is likely to be high because the prospect upon redeployment of affected worker to other parts of the organisation is remote.
This and other measures like volunteer, cross matching and lots more is been put into consideration when considering redundancies especially from this report point of view were compulsory redundancy might be put in view what measures can be taken by the employees to avoid them.
Early retirement is in large part a function of management practice and organisational culture (Sarah, 2006). There are measures to this which will be discussed in depth in the next chapter.
CHANGE TO WORKING PRACTICE AND ARRANGEMENT
This usually takes place in a working environment, and the term work practice and arrangement is a general term use to cover a wide range of areas like sussesion planning, career breaks, redeployments etc. which in general terms, according to Clare, 2008 (P.68) can be referred to as work flexibility. In the context of this report, flexibility working can be defined from the employee's perspective as an alternative work arrangement to describe working patterns which offer temporal or spatial flexibility, including full-time hours worked at time to suit the individual compressed work weeks and part-time and seasonal work. In order to be creative in deployment of staff so as to maximise output, some measures need to be taken which can improve work-force planning and been more effective and active in staff filling up dissimilar roles of which this is an added advantage on the part of the employee in increasing his skills and a drive to the organisation in building its future work force. One of the measures in doing this is.
1.2.1 COMPETENCY FRAMEWORK
Following this report context, it can be said to be a method which provides clear focus in supporting the improvement and development of employees` in order enabling them deliver the best of service possible. Job rotation is a practice which gives employees be it an individual direct experience with work pertaining to different knowledge and therefore increasing their knowledge and skill, Feagri, 2010.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE STRATEGIES
In this section of the report we would be looking at the likely consequences of the chosen methods for both employees and organisation.
Organisation according to the word of Swales, 1995, (p.96) is a bounded group of people interacting together to achieve a particular goal, in a formally co-ordinated and structured way following certain layed down goals. In today`s rapidly changing environment, the continuous change and improvement is very important in any organisation were the market, technologies and competitive situation are changing rapidly and unpredictably, Snyder et al, 1998. Which obviously, have consequences on both the employees and organisation as a whole? It is been paramount that before effecting a change to any objective, relevant information should be gathered like generating feasible options, evaluating and then the changes can be implemented, Adair, 1997.
CONSEQUENCES OF CHANGE TO WORKING PRACTICES AND ARRANGEMENTS
Flexing working is been carried out by organisation to handle complex demands of the dynamic economic and societal environment we live in (Gudela and Sabine 2009). This is been done to balance work and life relationship, but in the face of this report it is for effective savings. Providing work place choices can only succeed if it is been supported by management (Authur, 2001), even at this, it is been stated by (Hall and Atkinson, 2009,p 375; CIPD,2003) "that managers were the main barriers to the introducing an d implementing work-life balance policies", which also according to (Gudela and Sabine 2009,220) states that "flexible working affects the employment relations in a numbers of ways, which can be the use of contingent labour and causing career path to cross organisational borders more frequently".
2.1.2 Consequences of home-working and service change
Service might be important in this sense, making home working a choice to consider which can make some employees work from home, which no doubt will help reduce value and office space leasing cost. In this case improve and increase productivity (Authur, 2001). Even at this, it has its consequences which might can be cost ineffectiveness, because with it even maximising production, operating efficiencies can be lost when services are distributed across many location instead of one central station. Lack of motivation from even the most highly motivated member of staff (Juline et al, 2001).
2.2 CONSEQUENCES OF VACANCY MANAGEMENT
Effect of Redeployment
Restricting and downsizing have become traditional concepts in the lexicon of organisation and their member; although these strategies are mostly undertaken in the case of this report to improve organisational efficiency (Paulsen et al 2005) by proactively managing the conflicting demands, the budget will be placing on our manpower and this leading to jobs uncertainty amongst employees, to which if this is to take shape a range of training and development initiatives would need to be developed in assisting staffs, even at this a research carried out by Senneth 1991,Hyman et al, 2002 p.185, show evidence that, "redeployment of employees can lead to profound emotional damage, disbelief, sence of betrayal, confusion, anger and resolution" most especially with long serving staff, finding it quite difficult to adapt and accept change because their place of work as an alternative to home.
Studies from Masses 1993, Hyman et al, 2002 confirmed that "the effects of run down and closure on hospital staff are profound and far reaching and many nurses find the transition from hospital to community nurse very difficult indeed". Leading to feeling of institutional loss of which as mentioned above can be common especially among long serving employees. Hyman et al 2002 p.186 gives a list of factors affecting motivation which are awareness of learning opportunities, learning discontinuity and the motivational pathway.
Selected Method
Changes is ever present in today`s fast growing organisation and environment, Sharyn et al, 2006, keeping in mind its possible effect on culture which directly or indirectly has as effect on it environment and individual as well.
In making decision, I would choose avoiding compulsory redundancies because it is not one option aong so many to which management can choose in reducing manning levels, and it is an integral but not important predictable feature of the capitalist process, Sutherland 1998. This options inculcate all other loads of options, although they impact upon individuals employees, but do not reduce the number employed, Sutherland, 1998, of which can be done by suspending recruitment and those moving towards the point of retirement, for them planning their retirement and a succession plan put in place of which an internal one would be more appropriate.
Avoiding compulsory redundancy to me is preferable because according to Sutherland 1998, p.150, it gives "management the option of implementing options which yields the greatest discount benefits and choose between combinations of this policies which yields different returns. So avoiding compulsory redundancy gives options like short time working, a reduction in the number of shifts worked and job sharing, redeployment within the organisation or establishment and early retirement. Sutherland 1998. This is good because as mentioned above gives the organisation options, which could be ban over time, appeal for volunteers, early retirement and agreed salary cuts.
3.1 Method Rejected
Vacancy management seems quite not a measure I would adopt with mechanism like redeployment, absenteeism as mentioned in the report. Not in support of this method because according to Hyman et al 2002 p.185, evidence shows that "redeployment of employees can lead to profound emotional damage, disbelief sence of betrayal, confusion, anger and resolution", most especially with long serving staff, finding it quite difficult to adapt to change compared to other measures, and making the employees have the feeling of job insecurity and uncertainty. Paulsen et al, 2005. Another aspect of vacancy management is the aspect of retrenchment of which when mentioned creates a stressful environment for the employees because they always have to struggle with uncertainty surrounding the security of their position in the organisation, Paulsen et al, 2005.
4.0 Recommendation and Conclusion
The primary aim and finding taken to achieve cost saving and at that still delivering value for money services, putting into consideration employees, managers, decision makers and all related bodies. From all been said I do think few policies needs to be revisited and reviewed like secondment, redeployment as they do have negative effects pn the employees raising stress, making them uncomfortable bringing uncertainty around the work place, of which no doubt this type of atmosphere would always make them to making sure they are more concern in saving their jobs at any means.
