Redundancy

Background

You are a senior supervisor in a large financial services firm which, in common with many of its peers, has announced a significant number of redundancies and there is a generally unsettled feeling in the office.

You are approached by your line manager who tells you in confidence that he has been asked to review staff performance, with a view to implementing a 5% across the board cut in staff numbers and asking for your help in trying to identify those who can be put on the list. The principal criterion is that their departure should not result in any operational problems.

This is a task that you have always feared becoming involved in, as you have built up your team over a number of years and, having encouraged them to think of themselves as more than just colleagues, have become friends with many of them. Consequently, it is seemingly inevitable that a number of your friends will find themselves on the list, regardless of whether or not you are responsible for their inclusion.

In preparation for the meeting to which you have been invited the following week, you consider all your team individually and the more you look at their names the more you are faced with the fact that almost all of them seem to have a reason, either personal or professional, why you do not want to put their name forward.

On the Tuesday night you spend a few wakeful hours wrestling with the problem of how to adopt a “professional” approach which will not leave you feeling that you have betrayed your colleagues/friends. Your mood is not helped when you get into the office early on Wednesday and Eddie, one of your team members comes over and invites you to a lunch time drink to celebrate the news that he has just heard that he and his wife Nicola, are expecting their first child. Nicola used to be in your team, but now works in another part of your firm.

As Eddie says to you, the event is wonderful, but the timing could have been better, with all the uncertainty in the air about job security and he asks you whether you have heard anything on the grapevine. You reply that these are difficult times and that you are as concerned as everyone else.

At the meeting with the line manager, your HR manager is also present and says that the firm will need to ensure that all the appropriate procedures are followed as they don’t want to get involved in a large number of claims for wrongful dismissal. The meeting starts with your line manager going through a list of members of staff who report to you and making observations about the performance of a number of them, whom he feels would not be a loss to the firm. Although you agree in general with his observations, which are based largely upon annual performance appraisals which you have signed, you are concerned when he mentions Eddie’s name as being a possible contender for the list, bearing in mind what he told you that morning.

The meeting ends and you are told that there will be a follow-up in a couple of days time to confirm the names. In the meantime you have your lunchtime drink with Eddie to contend with and although you think about trying to excuse yourself, you decide to go along as it would be churlish not to, particularly since a large number of other team members will be there.

When you get to the pub Eddie buys you a drink and whilst doing so says that he had hoped that Nicola would be there but her department has been summoned to a meeting and he is very worried that she might lose her job. At this point, you wonder whether there is anything that you could say to Eddie to alert him to the possibility that he might suffer the same fate, or might you have a word with your line and HR managers?

The Dilemma

Understandably, you are concerned that a member of your staff may be about to lose his job at a time which is likely to be very stressful for him and his wife. This may be compounded if his wife also loses her job. You wonder whether there is anything that you could or should do to try to prevent this or ameliorate the impact.

Should you intercede for personal reasons? ie Eddie and his wife, who also works for the firm are about to become parents.

Should you try to soften the potential blow by tipping-off Eddie that he may be made redundant?

Considerations

When dealing with situations which have a direct human dimension there is an obvious temptation to take actions which you might not otherwise take, particularly if you are friends with those involved. Accordingly you may well ask yourself the questions:

Should I/Can I intercede for personal reasons? ie Eddie and his wife, who also works for the firm are about to become parents.

Should I/Can I try to soften the potential blow by tipping-off Eddie that he may be made redundant?

After all, there may be numerous other members of staff with situations which are much more difficult than Eddie is about to face, of which you are unaware. Should not you consider all of them as well? But how can you?

And, if it is known that Eddie and his wife are being favoured, what might be the reaction of other members of staff? Alternatively, if you tip-off Eddie, how do you think that he might he react?

Verdict

When decisions have to be made that have a personal dimension, it is more important than ever to adhere to the primary requirements of ethical decision making and to measure your proposed course of action against the yardstick of openness, honesty, transparency and fairness.

In this instance, any overt action that you may be tempted to take to favour Eddie, however you to try to rationalise it, is likely to fall short of some or all of these requirements.

One consideration which, in such a personal situation as this, may not be at the forefront of your mind, is your responsibility to your firm, both as an entity and as a representative of the interests of all your other members of staff. Not only does this mean that you must seek to act objectively and impartially in this matter, but also that you have a primary responsibility towards your employer. This is a recurrent theme in the SII Code of Conduct, where it sits alongside your responsibilities to clients and the market.

Consequently, unless you have good business reasons, such as Eddie’s performance being better than that of other potential nominees, or that he genuinely occupies a key role, you have no overriding reason for seeking to keep his name off the list.

Additionally, you may feel that you should tell HR that Eddie’s wife is pregnant, but this is not a decision that you should make on Eddie’s behalf. It is up to her and Eddie to decide who they will tell and when, even though this may have a bearing on the firm’s decision on her future.

Accordingly, in this instance the correct course of action must be to compile the list and then assess the strengths and weaknesses of all of the nominees. This would enable all of you involved in its compilation to consider matters objectively, before coming to a final list. It may be that this will actually result in Eddie being removed from the list but, even if it does not, you have acted in an ethical manner.