Redundancies are a last resort for businesses and are usually a consequence of downsizing, financial issues or a company takeover. When employees are notified of a redundancy, they will feel all kinds of emotions, including stress, worry and anxiety. They might worry about paying their bills or finding another job. According to Statisa, there were about 112,000 redundancies in the UK within a three month period to November 2024. This was compared with 99,000 for the three months previous. When employees are facing redundancy, it is important to support them as much as possible. These are some ways you can support your employees who are facing redundancy, in addition to the usual redundancy process you would follow.
Financial Advice
The main concern employees will have is their finances. They may have a family to feed or live on their own with no support in paying bills. Naturally, this is a huge worry to have, especially if the redundancy news comes out of nowhere. If your employee is concerned about money, you might want to offer them the support of a financial professional to help guide them through their finances and how they can support themselves until they find new employment.
Days Off
Employees facing redundancy may require days off for job searching or job interviews. To support employees, you can offer flexibility for these purposes, allowing them to actively look for new roles. Employees will be keen to secure a new role before they finish up, so they don’t end up in financial trouble.
Alternative Options
You should always suggest alternative employment options for those facing redundancy, even if they might not be an exact fit. For instance, if you are downsizing the accounts department, but there is a vacancy for an administrator, you should suggest this option to the employee. They are not under any obligation to accept it, and would usually still need to go through an interview process to check if their skill set matches the job profile.
Job Seeking Support
There are all kinds of job seeking support services you can use to help employees facing redundancy. These include CV writing services and interview guidance. You can use external services for this, if you don’t have the capability inhouse.
Counselling
If possible, you should suggest or offer counselling services to those that might be extremely worried or stressed about finding a new job. It will be particularly difficult for those employees that have been in the job for a significant time. It is not always easy to find a new job, particularly for older employees who might not have long left in the workplace.
Additional Meetings
You should be following a redundancy process which is in line with the employment law, but also be prepared to offer additional meetings to those who might need it. Some employees will require more support than others.
If you are looking for a CV workshop or interview skills workshop for your business, our professional careers advisers and CV writers can support your employees. You can contact us today to find out more about our career services.
