Internally Redeploying EE's

cathyb12

As a last ditch effort to avoid layoffs, my company is thinking of redeploying EE's from slow depts. to active depts. Does anyone have a successfu blueprint for a re-deployment program. Also, although we are not unionized, I'm not sure about legal issues.

joannie

We just did that at our terminals with drivers. We asked for volunteers and handled it as a temporary transfer at company request. Of course, our drivers are paid by a percentage of freight hauled, so the ones with no work were very willing to transfer.

cathyb12

Joannie,

Thanks for a quick reply...I'll definitely look into the voluntary aspect to see if it will work in our case.

davids

I would advise you to set up a screening process to ensure that the redeployed employee meets the qualifications for the new duties. You would potentially increase your liability if an accident was caused by your assigning tasks to an employee not qualified to perform them.

cathyb12

David,

Good idea...I guess the best way to screen would be to have "applicants" apply to the hiring manager just like an external candidate. It seems that this is going to be much more of a lengthy process than I anticipated.

ritaanz

How are you informing your employees of the available positions? We used a job posting system to let people know where the need was along with a short job decsription.

This allowed us to retain employees as well as cross train for future growth.

cathyb12

ritaanz

These are great ideas I'm getting from the forum...really helping me to flesh out the program / process. I'll have the managers construct brief job descriptions for their needs and post on our HR page where we typically place internal postings...I wonder....what if the EE's who apply for these temp redeployment positions are not the ones that their "home" managers want to let go ???

ritaanz

Well if you are going to pick and choose who stays and who goes, then the job posting will not serve your needs. If that is the case, then your managers need to approach the employees that are slated for lay off and advise them of the temporary positions available and see if there is any interest. Some employees may opt for the layoff.

How many people are we talking about?

cathyb12

About 50 out of 345 EE's

ritaanz

Wow! I must applaud you and the company in trying to transfer and train that many EE's. Can you absorb so many in the other areas? The other question I have is can they do the jobs that will be available.

cathyb12

It is going to be a challenge to redeploy that many people, so we are thinking of having managers (company wide, not just he affected divisions) make a "wish list" of projects they would like to see get underway, and see if we can use the excess headcount to man these projects. We really don't want to dump more people onto the unemployment line, and also, we will need these folks when business returns (and it will) to normal.