Site Closure Consultation
A global organisation with limited local HR resources in the UK were looking to rationalise costs of the UK operation by closing their site in the West Midlands and relocating to their larger site in the East Midlands. They had previously had issues with redundancies directed from their European HR and Legal Counsel, due to their lack of in-depth understanding of UK Employment Law.
Their UK-based HR were limited and not as confident in their capability to effectively facilitate the collective and individual consultation process for UK legal compliance. So, Adam was engaged to provide strategic and operational HR support to the project, in collaboration with their internal HR resource and in support of operational management on a consultancy basis.
He scrutinised the business case for change, challenging where appropriate to ensure that the rationale was not only sound but was in sufficient detail to ensure a good level of understanding by those placed ‘at risk’ of redundancy. And the evidence to support the proposal was included.
From this proposal, an announcement script was designed to help the operational managers brief their teams, as well as the local trade union representatives as there was a recognition agreement in place. As well as formal ‘at risk’ letter templates to be sent to all affected individuals along with invitations to nominate employee representatives for those not in the bargaining group for trade union support.
Then representatives were nominated a ballot was conducted to determine who the employee representatives would be to support the collective consultation process. These representatives were then trained on their responsibilities and briefed on what to expect during the collective consultation process.
The consultation plan and timetable were mapped out to ensure that everyone knew what deadlines and dates the project was working to, and a collective consultation meeting guide was drafted to help guide and inform the representative meetings. We attended all collective consultation meetings, along with operational management and internal HR, to ensure that technical questions were responded to, and in some cases that accurate notes were taken. We also supported debriefing to ensure that challenges and alternatives were considered and responded to appropriately.
Once we moved into individual consultation meetings, Adam drafted all the scripts and letters to support the process. He also attended a number of consultation meetings as HR support, since the volume of meetings required were such that additional support was needed.
We also ensured that redeployment discussions and terms around retention bonuses, and statutory and contractual redundancy payments were correct and in keeping with their statutory and contractual rights in compliance with HMRC guidelines. Once consultations were completed, we produced the dismissal template and tailored letters to all impacted individuals, ensuring the process was concluded properly and was effectively documented throughout.
Feedback from the Operational and HR team was that they were very appreciative and that they were impressed with how effectively and without incident the process was conducted.
