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So I want to talk about this being our minimum redundancy process, I really want everyone to take very close care in looking at this and understanding what is expected. So we spoke earlier about the consultation requirements under the Modern Award, or under the enterprise agreement. And bear in mind, this is going to apply to the large majority of employees, the large majority of employees will have some award coverage one way or another, even if they don’t think they do so, really award free occupations, that’s only going to be your high end executives, some professionals but not even all professionals, because number of professionals come in under the professional employees award that could be caught up by the miscellaneous award could be caught up by the clerks award. So let’s assume that in every redundancy situation, we need to consult because of the Modern Award.

So this is the recommended process that we advise to clients and guide clients through Okay, so the first thing would be to have what we call the initial consultation meeting. And that is where we advise the employee that look, a definite decision has been made to restructure and your position will be affected. In fact, your position is at risk of being terminated as part of the restructure. So it outlines usually the initial consultation meeting the business case for the restructure, why are we doing it is it for financial difficulties, operational changes, whatever it may be. And it also can outline what the alternative jobs may be if those alternative jobs are already known, we might say Look, your position will be affected, we have one or two vacancies. And as I mentioned earlier, these vacancies, these vacancies could also be things that are as a result of the restructure itself. I’ve got a question from Gina, which I’ll take after going through this process.

So the initial consultation letter then is something that we either give to the employee or recommend the employee gets either at the meeting or shortly after the meeting, what the letter does is it meets the modern award requirement of providing information about the restructure. So that is a second requirement that needs to be met generally in the Modern Award. So it will confirm the content of that initial meeting, it will outline the business case for the restructure, it will outline that that person’s position is being affected. And it will provide information about the relevant vacant roles that may exist in the organization. So it’s good to have the meeting. But it’s also important to have the initial consultation letter.

What we would then recommend is a consultation period of seven days. And I know that as a minimum and longer if you’re doing a bigger restructure, and I know that most people are going Oh God, I don’t want to wait from you know, seven days from one meeting to the next but not doing that will make it inevitable that you are not consulting regarding redundancies and restructuring as you are required to do so.

So during this time, what you should be thinking about is if you haven’t already identified any vacant roles, you may continue to consider whether or not there are any, you can continue to have discussions with the employees about the restructure, be those discussions informal or or formal or informal. And you can also offer your employees access to, you know, an employee assistance program or counseling services during that time should you wish to do so and we can assist you with things like that, should you need it.

We then have in seven days time either a second and or final meeting. Now. Normally, in the first meeting, we say if there is a vacant role, we normally put a date on how long that person should have to express interest for that vacant role. So we normally give them three or four days to say, look, there’s this vacancy, if you want to express interest for this vacancy, please do so by this particular date. If they don’t do that, by this particular date, we can make the assumption that they do not wish to apply for that role. And then we can move on to the second meeting, which will likely confirm a decision to make that person’s role redundant. A second meeting could also be for the purposes of if a person does apply for a role, it could be for the purposes of assessing their suitability for that particular position. So again, the second meeting could most of the time, the second meeting is the final meeting. But it could also be for the purposes of having a interim discussion about what was spoken about in the first meeting before we get to a final decision.

So if there is a clear cut outcome on whether they’re applying for roles or not, then that can be communicated in the second meeting that you haven’t applied for these roles, or you’ve indicated you don’t want to apply for these roles. And then that could be the case that the second meeting is to confirm the final decision of which then a second letter would follow confirming that redundancy. The other thing I would say that if you are considering redundancy, consider two things in particular consider whether or not you want to offer your employees counseling services for the purposes of dealing with you know the emotions of a restructure process, particularly if they’re a long standing employee. The other thing that we suggest to offer particularly for those respectfully older employees, who may be very uncertain about going into the workforce. Having to look for another role in the workforce is outplacement services.

And outplacement services are good for two reasons. Number one, they offer service to the employee for the purposes of helping them find future employment. But not only that, they also act as a good risk management exercise to deal with the emotions of being terminated and have the employee focusing on the future, rather than focusing on the past and thinking about Well, that was unfair that I was terminated from my employment, I really shouldn’t have been, and then sometimes that will lead to them looking at grievance as or commission claims as a basis for, you know, dealing with those emotions.

So that is a recommended redundancy process. We have put together this what we call a limited time restructure package for anyone who’s looking at undertaking a restructure. And that is, and that would offer the following services as part of the restructure package that we will provide you with a restructuring and redundancy plan. We provide you with advice on the payments and the related obligations. We give you the initial meeting plan the initial consultation letter, we would give you advice about the alternative jobs and selection criteria if it’s applicable, we give you advice on the further consultation discussions. The final meeting plan, the final meeting and the discussions and letters around those things. We can organize for you outplacement and EAP and we can give you a discount for the Fair Work Commission proceedings should you need us to represent you should any matters go before the commission for any for any clients with 1-3 redundancies or one three employees in that restructure costs $1500 plus GST It’s a limited time offer that we’re offering only for the purposes of this because we come to the end of job keeper. We don’t normally offer this as a one off service. We do have it included in all of our support packages for clients which are essential support performance and risk and HR managers for any clients are interested in ongoing support arrangements. They are included at free of charge as part of those support packages. So if anyone’s interested in those things, please get in touch with this at ondemandhr.com.au and we can talk you through either a limited time restructuring service or assisting you on an ongoing basis with this being at no extra cost for you as part of a monthly support.