Things Aren’t Really That Bad…Right?
Unsurprisingly, in the midst of the current economic downturn, professional bodies are advising businesses to avoid cutting jobs wherever possible.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), and the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) are going to release a new guide that aims to help managers deal with the current recession.

The booklet is imaginatively titled: ‘Managing in Recession’ is to released following the demand the CIPD has noticed it is receiving from businesses for information about redundancies. In fact, the company has noticed that the need for information on the subject is double what it was this time last year, and makes up 18% all its helpline calls.

Acas has also found a similar situation. It has found that 35% of the calls it received to its helpline last month were related either to redundancies, lay-offs or business transfers.

What Words Of Wisdom Does The Book Hold?

The advice from the book is said to emphasise to employers the importance of managing people correctly. This should therefore maintain employee engagement. It also asks employers to avoiding cutting jobs wherever possible, but if redundancies are inevitable, it highlights the need of employers to create redundancy strategies in order to deal with the issue sensitively and within the law.

Chief executive of the CIPD, Jackier Orme has said: “many employers are looking to their employees to develop new ways of working to cut costs and boost productivity, often in an environment where people have lost colleagues to redundancy. In these circumstances the extent to which employees are engaged and willing to go the extra mile for the organisation is critical.”

The chief executive of Acas, John Taylor, is also warning of the dangers of laying off too many too quickly: “Many of those organisations that were quick to lay off people in the last recession struggled to meet their renewed business demand when the economy picked up again.”

What Do You Think?

How do you feel that things have gotten to the point where companies feel the need to produce guidance booklets about redundancies? Are things really as bad as they sound, or are companies over-reacting slightly? What do you advise fellow businesses to do about redundancies? Leave your comments here.

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