As part of W3RT CVS Membership, groups are supported with HR advice, and referrals to consultants. One group, a local Charity, were successfully connected to one of our retained Consultants, Redway HR, who helped in the following ways: 

• The Charity, who has been affected by the pandemic, needed to urgently restructure services to help better support the community during lockdown
• Unfortunately, in the restructure it was highlighted that they may need to consider redundancies, so this was a particularly hard case, 
• Being a small charity, they approached W3RT CVS for support in handling a sensitive matter.  

The challenges that W3RT CVS were looking at initially, before referral to the HR Consultant were:    

• How the Charity would approach the subject with the employees concerned, 
• Whether W3RT CVS could introduce them to an HR support consultant with particular experience in helping charities with these specific issues and its sensitivities during the pandemic, 
• How to move forward in a positive manner after HR consultation and confirming any changes or new terms.  

Community beneficiary  

The HR Consultant, Redway HR, provided the following support: 

• Friendly support throughout the process, at each stage offering practical guidance and talking through any questions or concerns, either over the phone, via zoom or in person,  
• Bespoke advice to meet the specific needs of the organisation as a small charity with very limited funds,
• Began with an initial discussion to understand the organisation’s situation and the challenges they were facing,
• A step-by-step explanation of the process to follow to ensure the redundancy was fair and met all the legal requirements, including consulting with the individual before reaching any decision, how to approach, the issues to discuss, and the timeframes,
• Specific advice on how redundancy could be progressed when staff were furloughed and what can and can’t be reclaimed in a redundancy situation, 
• Provided template letters and scripts to use for each stage of the process and helped calculate redundancy payments and notice pay, 
• Supported the manager at a meeting with the individual at risk of redundancy, to resolve a number of queries raised, 
• Signposted information on outplacement support and training to the individual if they required it, like interview skills training.  

The Charity said:   

“The HR consultant was reassuring. Thank you so much for this much needed advice in such times. I'm really grateful to W3RT for supporting our charity and making these HR services to us as part of our membership.” 

HR Consultant added: 

“It is important to highlight what support is available, and we are happy to support any other organisations moving forward in the same way.”  

The HR Consultant also identified some additional areas of concern the Charity needed on some of their staff contracts and is continuing to support the Charity in completing these. 

W3RT CVS can provide planning, consultation and advice as this case shows, so please do get in touch at [email protected].