In short
20 or more staff in a 90-day period triggers collective consultation
- Not following the clear legal requirements of the consultation
- Adopting poor practices such as ‘hire and fire’
- No credible business case, with financial and market analysis
- Not taking staff concerns and counter proposals seriously
A collective staff consultation may be required when an employer seeks to change material terms of employees’ contracts, including redundancy, where 20 or more staff are potentially involved within a 90-day period at a single establishment.
The consequences of getting it wrong can be costly, whether it be in the form of the cost of unfair dismissal claims (with compensation increases supported by Employment Tribunals) or reduction in engagement and productivity from remaining staff.
Meeting the statutory obligations is not difficult and the dice are loaded in favour of employers. Despite this, some employers continue to apparently underestimate the opportunity by:
- Not following the clear legal requirements of the consultation;
- Adopting unnecessary and poor practices like ‘hire and fire’;
- Failing to present a credible business case for change, with credible financial and, if appropriate, market analysis;
- Failing to take staff concerns, questions and counter proposals seriously and with patience.
However difficult the circumstances, smarter employers treat collective staff consultation as an investment, an opportunity to demonstrate depth of character to treat employees fairly and decently even in difficult times. In our experience of supporting consultations as employers and advisors across cost reduction programmes, restructuring, mergers, demergers and TUPE across small, middle market and large businesses it simply isn’t worth the cost of not doing a collective consultation effectively.
We work with management teams to provide them with the insights and capabilities to deliver change in a multidisciplinary way supporting leadership, people, finance, legal and IT considerations. We can roll our sleeves up although most of the work is based on embedding a framework for improvement and ‘skills transferal’, giving your team the ability to make cost effective and long lasting improvements. Our experience is based on supporting mergers, restructuring, cost reduction and re-energisation programmes across the middle market as well as international businesses.
If you want to expect more from your board and professional advisors, contact us.