Companies can protect their image when making staff redundant by providing support to those who are departing, writes Caroline Madden

ALL EMPLOYERS know that sticking to the letter of the law when making staff redundant is critical, but businesses must also take care not to damage their brand. If they treat their staff insensitively or disrespectfully during the redundancy process, word will spread quickly and they can wave goodbye to their reputation as a caring employer.

One way of protecting a company's image and minimising negative publicity is to provide career transition support - also known as outplacement - to employees being let go.

Gerard O'Shea, managing partner at outplacement firm Sanders and Sidney/O'Shea, works with bluechip organisations to enable them to be as supportive as possible in redundancy situations.

According to O'Shea, the first step in providing career transition support is to help people to cope with the emotional impact of job loss. "The second is to reinforce that they are going to relaunch their career," he says. The third step is to help them to identify their skills and market themselves to potential employers.

"When you lose your job, it's probably the most difficult time, because your confidence can be down and then you have to go out and sell yourself," he says.

The level of support provided varies. Some organisations will provide an outplacement service to all employees being made redundant, but will tailor the support to the specific needs of different groups.

"So you might, for example, have group support with a certain amount of individual support at a more junior level, and then at a senior level you'd have one-on-one support," says O'Shea.

In some cases, senior executives are provided with unlimited support - in other words, it continues until they succeed in relaunching their career, whether that means getting a new job or setting up their own business. "They may have got a good financial package but no matter how much somebody has in the bank, they still have to move forward and get their career going again," says O'Shea. "So, as you can imagine, that dimension being introduced to the situation makes a huge difference."

Effectively, outgoing staff have a private mentor whose sole interest is their success, which can be empowering. It also sends out a strong message from the company that letting them go was a tough decision and it has a genuine interest in supporting them through this phase.

Employees at a more junior level are likely to be provided with a time-limited programme. So, for example, they will receive career transition support for three or six months.

The way in which news of redundancies is delivered to staff is important. "We've got to make sure that they are treated with the utmost dignity and respect, and that the manager who has to impart that news is also helped because that's hugely emotional [and] stressful," says O'Shea.

Managers may have no previous experience of bringing people into their office and breaking the news that they're about to lose their livelihood, so it is important that they receive support in implementing redundancies.

Managers must remember that clarity and consistency are vital when delivering the news. "When you're getting bad news, you don't fully hear everything," says O'Shea. "It's like getting bad news about your health - it's difficult to take everything in. So clarity is very important and being available to people is very important."

Organisational psychologist John Deely of consultancy firm Pinpoint advises employers to beware of a phenomenon that can occur in redundancy situations known as "survivor syndrome".

If the situation is not managed well, those who dodge the bullet and remain with the company can feel guilty and demoralised, he says.

"If a redundancy situation is handled poorly, yes you will achieve cost cuts, but you will also achieve a sort of an amplified negative impact on the morale of those [who remain]," says Deely. "So if you're going to let people go, you need to try to insulate the morale of people left behind."

By reducing the headcount in a way that shows an element of care, and by providing support to those who are departing, those left behind "feel less negative", he says. They also tend to "buckle down" to work more quickly once the job cuts have been made.