The Legal Implications of Employee Restructuring (2013)
Legal Implications of Employee Restructuring Dissertation – This dissertation allows the reader to gain an understanding of the confusing area of organisational restructuring models and the legal implications that may arise in the process. This will be achieved by secondary information, consisting predominantly of texts, case examples, soft law, case law and statutes. The subject area will be explained in detail by using several sub-questions which seek to find out the reasoning and types of re-active tactical restructuring models, the approaches to take when restructuring organisations and the implications that can affect the employers when not following the correct procedures.
This study area is of particular importance as many organisations in the past three years have resulted to re-organising as a consequence of the poor economic climate.For the purposes of this dissertation, secondary research has been carried out, predominantly because primary research is extremely time consuming, when asking questions to employers with regard to their restructuring strategies, will undoubtedly lead to a bias answer and lastly because there isn’t one single law that covers this area, therefore several areas need to be looked at and merged together.
The secondary information that was relied on was predominantly qualitative information, which was of a narrative nature. Initially, research looked at the current economy, and tried explaining why so many businesses are in turmoil, followed by why and how companies’ restructure. Secondly the research went on to look at the legal perspective of the dissertation, whereby the term employee was researched, as well as the legal implications that arise when incorrectly reducing staff members via the texts of employment, insolvency and contract law.
Unfortunately, not all decision makers will have been educated in the relevant areas and poor decisions can and have been made, resulting in litigation. The main recommendations drawn from this study are; If there is a staff downsizing procedure agreed between a trade union and the employer, the employer must strictly adhere to it. If there isn’t involvement with a trade union, the employer should follow as best as possible, the procedures set out by ACAS. However, whatever the case is, this dissertation should be used merely as an outline and it is recommended that an employer should always seek legal advice.
- 10,000 words – 52 pages in length
- Excellent use of literature
- Well written throughout
- Good analysis of subject area
- Ideal for HRM and law students
1 – Introduction
Introductory Statement
Research Hypothesis
Methodology
Literature Review
2 – Employees
Who is an Employee
Tests of Employment Status
3 – Employee Restructuring and the Legal Ramifications
Why Organisations Need To Restructure
Methods of Corporate Restructuring
Mergers
Pre-Packs
Transfer of Undertakings
Relevant Insolvency Proceedings
Employee Liability
Varying a Contract of Employment
Methods of Staff Restructuring
Variation of contracts
Flexibility Clauses
Working Under Protest
Constructive Dismissal
Redundancy
Wrongful Dismissal
Unfair Dismissal
The Redundancy Process
Introductory Statement of Intent
Voluntary Redundancies
Consultation
Selection Methods
Redundancy Notice and Garden Leave
Redundancy Payments
HRM Methods
4 – Recommendations
5 – Conclusion
6 – Bibliography
