Challenge
A UK manufacturing company was to embark on a large scale voluntary redundancy project in the wake of Covid-19. The company was concerned about the logistical challenge of completing settlement agreements for over 600 employees.
Solution
To avoid lengthy and repeated negotiations with individuals, our project team centralised negotiations with a discreet number of employee solicitors and agreed a standard ‘deal with all’ settlement agreement template. This was then adapted to each employee, with relevant clauses added or dropped.
We took the burden of completing agreements away from the client by using a digital document signing platform for the signature process. This allowed a high volume of agreements to be automatically circulated and completed by all relevant parties.
Communication was key so we ensured that we worked with the client to assist employees in understanding what the next steps were, what was required of them and when, with a dedicated point of contact for any issues our queries that arose so they could be dealt with swiftly by our project team.
We also held proactive, regular update meetings with the Client with an up-to-date signature tracker so that individuals could be prompted, and issues addressed before deadlines were missed.
Results
By using tech wisely and automating the signature process, the project ran smoothly and we were able to complete high volumes of agreements efficiently, quickly and crucially and strategically at the right time – so completion coincided with termination, pay roll and the balance of liability.
In total we delivered 1,849 completed agreements, with second signature.
While our Client’s senior leaders had originally expected regular calls to fire fight issues for a project of its size, they remarked that they had in fact ‘heard nothing’ throughout the project, viewing this as a measure of its quiet success. Further the Client indicated that they would adopt the process going forward for future settlement agreements.
If you have a similar large scale voluntary redundancy project on your plate, you can get in touch with us here.
For Redundancy programme guidance, visit this section of the resource hub.
