Commission staff working document

Many tools and measures have been put into place by Member States in the context of the crisis (2).

Career choice and career development are extremely diverse around the EU (4).

There are persisting national differences that make translation of good practices from one country to another difficult. Although it is probably not possible to transfer whole tools, there is a case for looking at the functional equivalents of tools in different countries. For example, many mechanisms are composed of basic tools or measures which are often similar across Europe, such as individual profiling, skills assessment, personal action plans, job clubs, training for job search, individual or group coaching during the search process, support for business creation and training offers. It is important to focus on what is done instead of who is doing it and how (7).

Member States differ greatly in terms of the types of measures that they adopt to anticipate and manage restructuring. However, there is the potential for the transfer of experiences from Member States with more developed toolboxes for restructuring (8).

The exporting of entire systems of system-dependent processes should be discouraged. However, there are micro examples of practice that can be considered for adoption in the context of differing national environments and systems of employee relations (10).

The quality and maturity of enterprises’ arrangements to support workers are affected by the variable starting points for different countries (12).

Collective bargaining and other forms of bi- and tripartite bargaining, negotiation and dialogue are one of the most important tools of anticipating and managing changes at all levels (6).

Social dialogue is a key tool in the anticipation and management of restructuring (8).

The active engagement of the social partners in the anticipation and management of change at all levels improved performance in the design of change management architecture and in restructuring practice (10).

The involvement of social partners in the design and implementation of flexicurity policies through social dialogue and collective bargaining is of crucial importance (12).

A range of knowledgeable partners are needed in order to promote healthier restructuring (5).

The multi-actor approach with strong interconnections between actions at different levels is extremely important (6).

Multi-actor collaboration is of importance through all the stages of restructuring, and partnerships at regional, national and sectoral level are essential ingredients for dealing with the issues and concerns that are related to restructuring (9).

SMEs do not have the same internal HR resources as larger companies and often lack the necessary knowledge about external support offers that might facilitate and ease the process of organisational restructuring. External collaborations are very useful for organisations, and particularly SMEs (5).

There are a range of tools that can be used by SMEs to help them to anticipate and manage restructuring. These include outplacement, a range of training offers, local and regional employment pacts that cover SMEs, and schemes that validate skills and competences (7).

There is a gap between large companies and SMEs regarding anticipation, social dialogue practices and the support given to workers when made redundant. Many restructuring models are not appropriate for smaller companies and there is therefore a lack of support for SMEs (8).

It is often said that small and micro enterprises are the engines of economic growth and act as shock absorbers at times of change, but it is clear that the role of small and micro enterprises in the economy and the issues they face in restructuring are more complex (10).

There should be fair allocation of resources regarding short-time and temporary lay-off schemes, with specific attention paid to the needs of SMEs (10).

There needs to be more health monitoring and prevention in a coordinated way (5).

True anticipation initiatives were only to be found in a limited number of EU Member States, and their effectiveness depends on timeliness and good-quality data (8).

Actions that focused on the ‘before’ stage of restructuring have entailed a more proactive approach and have been able to minimise the negative social impacts of restructuring (9).

Anticipation of change is crucial if sudden and unexpected workforce shocks are to be avoided and restructuring take place against timescales that facilitate both organisational change objectives and the delivery of acceptable solutions for affected workers (10).

EU funding is relied on by some of the newer EU Member States in the development of measures to anticipate and manage restructuring (8).

Severance payments, while attractive to individual workers, are not a long-term measure. When designing a severance package, elements such as retraining and competence development should be included. Similarly, there should not be any over-reliance on early retirement (8).

Career guidance and continuing training are vital components of socially responsible restructuring (4).

Training, skilling and reskilling are seen as key to anticipating or accompanying restructuring in order to avoid unemployment or to facilitate a rapid return to the labour market (8).

Training and other human capital measures, such as mentoring, are key tools in the management of restructuring, allowing individuals to develop their skills, and deal with their own personal employment situation (9).

The social partners in every participating country highlighted current skills mismatches and/or the future skills needs to support the changing economy as key issues for the social partners and for government. In the longer term, these issues have to be addressed through more, and more effective, investment in education and training at all levels. In the shorter term the issues of lifelong learning and migrant workers need to be tackled (10).

The availability of measures to support the transfer of redundant workers to new jobs is limited and uneven across Member States (8).