The world of work is changing rapidly and the human resource requirement is changing equally fast. The capabilities required by an organisation last year may differ significantly this year. There is, therefore, no need to be ashamed if an employer can no longer use the skills you offer. It is true that many people in this situation are ready to leave at the time that redundancy hits them but the discomfort derives from knowing that given the choice they would probably not be around when such a decision is taken.

The job for life has gone. These days people at all levels and all professions and skills are leaving organisations following restructuring. Many have been with their employers for upwards of 25 and more years and now find themselves entering the job market again for the first time since leaving school. When they joined the organisation, these employees would have been fairly safe in the knowledge that if they wanted to spend their entire working life with the organisation, they could have done so.

Organisational change

Whatever the causes - technology, the demands of shareholders, global industrialisation - it is clear that organisational change happens now more quickly than ever. Change happens because organisations need to remain competitive and efficient, and it, therefore, tends to be driven by operational need (cost reduction) or from a marketing imperative (increased revenue). If it is operational efficiency which is driving the change, it may well be that whole layers of management or functional areas are removed, perhaps to be outsourced.

This inevitably leads to greater pressure on those who remain and who often find themselves with an increased workload. Furthermore, morale is quite often on a downward slope during the period leading to redundancy announcement; performance is often poor and productivity severely affected. It is of critical importance to note and to keep in mind that it is your capabilities which should be under scrutiny and not your talent. One may be the best PR manager the organisation has ever employed; you may have helped the profile of the organisation so that rarely does a week go by when the company is not mentioned on TV or the newspaper. However, that won't guarantee that you keep your job if the decision has been made to outsource all PR activity to an agency.

The 'flattening' of organisations also increases the desirability of redundancy. Knowing that where there might previously have been two or three persons competing for the next job up the ladder, with flattened structures there may now be 10 or more persons reporting to a single line manager. All of a sudden, the chances of promotion are greatly reduced and the desire to leave increases.

In spite of these fundamental changes to the way we work and the massive increases in corporate change and therefore redundancy, many people still feel ashamed about being made redundant. Here, I must make it clear that it is not the individual who is made redundant as some people argue. It is the job which one performs which is made redundant.

Where mergers have taken place and there are two candidates for one position it is often politics rather than talent which dictates who will be offered the new job or else it comes down to which personality is most likely to fit the new organisation. Again, this is no reflection on the quality of the individual who loses out. For the vast majority, however, redundancy is part of a cost-cutting exercise in which roles and functions are considered to be an unnecessary burden on the organisation and are, therefore, removed.

It is true that some employers may have concerns and doubts about taking on people whose jobs have been made redundant. In the Jamaican scenario, where some workers put up a fight even after their employers have scrupulously followed the letter of the law as it relates to redundancy. Employers must of necessity have concerns about taking on some of those people. The concerns are not usually a question of if the person can do the job, but whether they will bring their disruptive attitude to the new organisation.

It is unfortunate, that not withstanding the fact that The Employment (Termination And Redundancy Payment) Act, its enabling Regulations and the Labour Code, provide the way in which redundancy should be handled, invariably some employers and some trade union leaders stumble around helplessly in dealing with the matter responsibly. And because the parties fail to do what is required, the matter is resolved only after there is unnecessary dislocation at the workplace.

Breakdown of trust

Quite often, the problem is as a result of either insufficient communication, poor communication or no communication at all. There are instances also, where either or both parties, employers and worker representatives, for one reason or another fail to carry out agreed procedures. When these things happen, there is usually the breakdown of trust, if not between the employer and the union representative, it is between the employer and the employees, and trust, once lost, is not easily regained.

It is, therefore, of critical importance, not only on the question of redundancy, that every effort should be made to follow the rules which govern good workplace relations. Jamaica can no longer afford the luxury of hostility at the workplace.

Herbert Lewis is an industrial relations consultant and past president of the Jamaica Employers Federation. Email herblewis@cwjamaica.com.