Introduction

For an organization, redundancy is a process that is used by the management to inform employees about their termination of the labor contract. Workforce planning is an important part of redundancy planning because it ensures that the appropriate people are in the right jobs at the right time and with the correct abilities (Walker and Jojola, 2013). The redundancy planning is done based on the organization’s future demands and goals. It compels organizations to implement action-oriented and strategic workforce planning. In this context, this paper describes the managers’ workforce planning for redundancy plan to ensure the successful implementation of the plan within the organization without affecting the engagement of other employees.

Redundancy Plan

Workforce planning is critical for preventing redundancy situations in which an employee’s position of employment in the organization is or will become surplus and the employer will not be able to give the job to him or her. It is critical to prepare for redundancy in order to keep an effective workforce inside the company, as rightsizing, downsizing, or outsourcing may result in the removal of positions or job categories. Due to a lack of skills or inadequate career advancement of workers, having more than one resource to fulfill an activity tends to degrade the deliveries quality (Keall, 2012).In other words, roles inside an organization may become redundant as a result of a decrease in business income or/and available work, or as a result of the workplace’s desire to restructure and simplify the organization. In this situation, the employee’s job is frequently excessed to the requirements or demands of the company (Murdock and Scutt, 2007). In these situations, organizations or employers will notify their employees of downsizing of their role, which may or may not occur.

Workplace Planning

In this regard, the retrenchment plan should be implemented by the company with the goal of reducing business operations to decrease costs and achieve more stable financial circumstances. In general, a retrenchment strategy occurs when a firm decides to remove its activities through a significant reduction in its business operations, taking into account various perspectives in terms of groups, functions, and technological options, either collectively or individually (Hawker, 2020). There are three main methods of retrenchment that are commonly employed by businesses to better manage their employees.

Turnaround Retrenchment Strategy: There are numerous business choices when organizations believe a previous decision was erroneous and that it has to be reversed before the company’s profitability is harmed. During a period of persistent loss, bad work management, significant staff attrition, falling market share, and inadequate functional management, among other things (Kozami, 2002). Generally, the necessity for this approach emerges as a result of changes in the external business environment like changes in government policy, demand saturation, and changes in preferences for the products among other things.

Liquidation Retrenchment Strategy: According to Kozami (2002), this is the most unpopular approach that the organization seldom employs, as it entails selling off assets and shutting down activities completely. Organizations engage in this approach for a variety of reasons, including the loss of future possibilities, a tarnished market image, job loss, and so on. There are numerous indicators that compel a company to pursue a liquidation retrenchment plan.

Divestment Retrenchment Strategy: This involves reducing the scope of the company’s operations. Generally, this approach has been implemented by an unproductive component of the firm for effective management as well as a solid financial position (Schulz and Johnson, 2003).
As per the above analysis of three different strategies, it can be stated that the divestment retrenchment strategy is mainly approached by an organization to make effective workforce planning within the organization. In this context, the company can adopt voluntary redundancy in the context of downsizing situations because this approach is useful for the managers to motivate the employees to make the decision to give up the organization based on age above 45. With the help of voluntary retrenchment, the management of the company can avoid layoff to employees and improve the competitiveness, efficiency, and reduce reliance on external markets’ factors.

Steps to Mitigate Redundancies

An organization needs to use different ways for mitigating redundancies to ensure turnover and retain skilled employees in the place of work. In this regard, the followings are some steps to mitigate redundancies:

Decrease Staff

For mitigating the redundancies, an organization needs to focus on the hiring of the staff as per the needs of the organization. For this, the assessment of the required productivity of the organization is important (Allen and Bryant, 2012). This assessment report helps the HR managers to know the requirements of the workforce for performing existing operational activities of the organization. In this regard, the decrease in the staff is an effective method that is the useful process of the organization to replace the redundancies.

Reducing External Needs

Every organization must be followed an effective retention plan to hold the skilled employees with the operations. In this regard, the organization must select and appoint the employee for a new task from its inner organization. As a result, the organization can manage the work redistribution in an effective manner (Styka, Konitzer, and Richards, 2014). With the help of this process, the HR manager of an organization can reduce the risk of redundancy. This is an effective step for labor retention within the organization.

Employee Turnover Management

The management of the workforce is another way that can be used to ensure the effective allocation of the right employee at the right place. In this context, the introduction of a voluntary redundancy policy at the workplace is an effective way of employee management that will give the decision-making rights to employees to go outside of the organization by making self-decision (Allen and Bryant, 2012). This policy may help those employees who do not fit with the new requirements of the organization.

Steps to Assist the Workforce towards Redundancy Plan

Organizational change is a normal occurrence, and it puts a lot of pressure on companies to help their employees. Several sorts of changes can occur in an organization. For example, a physical move may have an influence on employees, resulting in lower production while they adjust to the new location. On the other hand, staff reduction for cost-cutting purposes, litigation, reorganization, and a variety of other issues must be addressed by company executives. As a result, employees are frequently concerned and uneasy about organizational change. For holding the skilled workforce within the organization with the same level of the efficiency, followings are some steps that must be followed by the HR management in the organization:

Open communication: managers of the organization must communicate with the employees about the possible changes in the work environment. Employees of the organization must aware of their role in the changed scenario (Gutierez, 2014). As per this, it can be possible that the employees of the organization will effectively manage the organizational activities without being a burden on the organization.

Personal counseling: With the help of training and development, an organization can easily deal with change in the external and internal business environment (Project Management Institute, 2013). Through training, managers can assist the employees to adapt to changes in an effective manner that will help them to address the employee’s barrier and improve their engagement in the changing environment of the organization.

Conclusion

As per the above discussion, it concluded that the HR management of a company must be analyzed the availability of the workforce as per the present scenario of the business. Further, effective communication, personal counseling is some steps that must be planned by the managers to implement effective redundancy plan in the organization for the workforce.

References

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Gutierez, A. (2014). Effective Communication in the Workplace: Learn How to Communicate Effectively and Avoid Common Barriers to Effective Communication. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
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Keall, S. (2012). Employment & Labour Law: Jurisdictional Comparisons. Sweet & Maxwell.
Kozami, A. (2002). Business Policy and Strategic Management,2e. McGraw-Hill Education.
Murdock, A. and Scutt, C. (2007). Personal Effectiveness. Routledge.
Project Management Institute. (2013). Managing Change in Organizations: A Practice Guide. Project Management Institute.
Schulz, R. and Johnson, A. (2003). Management of Hospitals and Health Services: Strategic Issues and Performance. Beard Books.
Styka, T., Konitzer, A. and Richards, M. (2014). Ethics and Internal Hiring: Cases in Effectiveness: Essential Management Practices. ICMA Publishing.
Walker, R. and Jojola, T. (2013). Reclaiming Indigenous Planning. McGill-Queen’s Press – MQUP.