MANAGING REDUNDANCIES IN HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT; A COMPLEX NEXUS OF CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE IN GLOBAL ORGANISATIONS

Resumé

Rain or shine, in good or bad times, redundancy is a sensitive management decision in the legal aspect of human resources management. It evokes a lot of tension and requires operational excellence at each stage of the process. Redundancy management is multi-dimensional and encompasses key variables such as organisational justice, legal aspects of human resources management and situational leadership. Using a comparative HR practices social science research approach, the study examined a redundancy process for a global organisation that affected 55 staff in 14 countries across all the 4 global geographic regions of Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. It concludes that there are key redundancy execution standards to ensure a fair process and outcome. The study posits that an organisation’s redundancy process is inherently a complex process that requires an organisational design approach anchored on principles, an organisational model that clarifies roles and responsibilities, data and insights-driven legal aspects of human resources management and is characterised by interests-based bargaining, which underpins the engagement between senior leadership and works councils/staff representatives.