Restructuring and Redundancies

As your business evolves, you may need to change how it operates, or how it’s structured.

As well as the often complex legal considerations of restructuring a business, you also need to communicate clearly with your employees about how it might affect them, particularly if redundancies are involved.

A well-managed reorganisation or restructure can help you achieve greater efficiencies, do better business, and plan more effectively for the future. But unless you engage with your employees openly around any potential changes – positive or negative – you can hit problems.

Expert advice for dealing with redundancies

A fair redundancy process isn’t as simple as telling someone you have to let them go. It involves several stages, including selection, consultation, and the consideration of alternative employment. It’s a delicate undertaking, and it’s also important to factor in the effects it will have on those remaining in the business and the stress for those involved in managing the process.

That’s where our expertise can be invaluable. We work closely with you to achieve the desired business results, while making sure the support is there to make it all as painless as possible for everyone concerned. This can involve, for example, attending meetings with you, preparing documents and hearing appeals.

Avoiding unforeseen issues

We can help you with every step of the process for dealing with restructuring and redundancies. That includes initial planning, consultation and review, right through to implementation and conclusion. Depending on the nature of the restructure and the number of people involved, you might trigger collective consultation duties, which means starting the planning and the actual process much earlier.

Whatever your business restructuring requirements or plans, our expert team provides friendly, practical support. We’ve extensive experience of the sensitivities of restructuring and redundancies, and how to manage them and achieve the best results for all parties.

Examples of our restructuring and redundancies expertise include:

• advising a large national retailer on the implementation of pay cuts, contract changes affecting around 40 members of staff, and a large-scale redundancy programme – including collective consultation and impacting 110 members of staff
• wholesale restructuring of teaching staff within a secondary and junior school
• hands-on support with a redundancy programme affecting four teams within a manufacturing business – including detailed consideration of selection pools and appropriate selection criteria
• supporting a local tourism business with a review of its operations, particularly in light of COVID-19 restrictions, and its options for implementing a new structure with the least possible impact on employees
• advising a hotel and spa on a collective redundancy and restructure programme affecting over 70 employees
• supporting a local business with a wide-ranging review of employees’ hours, pay and working practices to bring greater efficiency and flexibility to the workforce
• advising a retail organisation on the redundancy of 235 staff, involving collective consultation and complex employee relations.