Welcome to the fourth week in

your journey in HR risk management and compliance.

This week you will learn about
compliance strategy and implementation.
To begin, you will learn about the role of
human resources in organization restructuring,
which can include growth,
concentration, mergers and acquisition, and downsizing.
You will also learn more
about offshoring and outsourcing.
Next, you will discover the role of
human resources in business continuity,
which is the planning and actions that an organization
undertakes to ensure it can
operate business functions during emergency events.
You will specifically review divestitures and furloughs.
As an HR professional,
you will often be responsible for many things,
including organizational restructuring
and business continuity,
so it is important to understand them.
Let's get started.

As you know, human resource management

involves a variety of tasks and responsibilities.
These tasks include employing practices and policies
in organizational design and
recruiting and retaining employees.
Another important aspect of HR is
to assist with organizational restructuring.
Organizational restructuring can be caused
by factors such as fluctuations and
competition or customer demand
and the identification of
redundancies within the organization.
There are four strategies
to organizational restructuring.
The first strategy or phase in
organizational restructuring supports growth.
This strategy involves recruiting and retaining
quality workers to support
an organization's business model.
Concentration is the second strategy.
In this strategy, an organization eliminates products and
services that are not
profitable and favor for those that are.
A third strategy for
restructuring is a merger or acquisition.
A merger is when two different organizations
join into one,
and an acquisition occurs when
one organization buys another.
Downsizing, the last strategy,
involves eliminating jobs to improve
the organization's productivity and profitability.
The eliminations can either be temporary or permanent.
Play video starting at :1:39 and follow transcript1:39
To review, organizational restructuring
is a common business strategy.
There are four approaches to consider growth,
concentration, mergers or acquisitions, and downsizing.
HR professionals play an important role
in each of these approaches,
and they assist an organization
and making the process successful.
Coming up, you'll learn more about each of
these restructuring processes and
review examples of each.

Human resources plays an important role

in the restructuring of an organization.
In this video, we will
explore what restructuring means and
why it's important for an HR professional
to understand their role in the process.
Common business strategies within
an organization include growth,
concentration, mergers,
and acquisitions, and downsizing.
It is important for an HR professional to
align and balance these goals within an organization.
Let's explore each of
these concepts a bit more thoroughly.
During an organization's growth stage,
it is imperative to recruit and
retain the best workers for the organization.
Organizations will often encourage current employees to
refer new applicants or offer relocation incentives,
bonuses, or rewards as
motivation to join the organization.
To illustrate, urban attire is growing
with significant expansion across the United States.
To support recruitment, urban-attire is
HR department decides to offer
a $100 incentive payment to
current employees who refer
new employees to the organization.
The next common business strategy, is concentration.
In the concentration strategy
an organization will eliminate
units that are not supporting
profits in favor of those that are.
A human resource managers role is to
support those business units
retained by the organization.
They also recruit and retain
the employees who are most needed for future success.
An example of concentration is when
urban-attire closes a low-performing store.
In order to retain staff,
they move the staff of
the low-performing store to
a higher-performing store in the area.
HR is enlisted to ensure the transition of
staff from one store to another is smooth.
Mergers and acquisitions combine
two organizations through
either a new joint venture or
by absorbing one organization into the other.
As an HR professional,
you will be active in every stage of
a merger or acquisition before the deal is
broached during the due diligence in
integration planning and throughout implementation.
HR can assist before a merger or acquisition is
broached by preparing a process map
that identifies the organizations,
departments, and their inter-connectivity.
A process map can also be developed for
the organization that is
the target of the merger or acquisition.
Mergers and acquisitions also require
recruitment, hiring, and retention.
When thinking about the future of
human capital in the organization,
there are three main components that can help set
the strategic direction of the unified organization.
Employee resourcing.
Think about who will occupy
which executive jobs and
who should be on the board of directors.
Learning and development.
Think about the similarities and
differences in the work cultures.
If they are different,
think about how those differences can be addressed.
Performance and reward and provision of services.
Think about the best talent and how they can be retained.
Similarly, analyze how the performance and
reward systems of the two organizations can be aligned.
Over the past several years,
urban attire has been working toward expansion.
They've noticed a similar clothing business
that is still young, but quickly growing.
Urban attire views this young company as
a significant rival and
sets it as their acquisition target.
Absorbing this young brand will ensure
urban attire remains
a top clothing company in the market.
Urban attire offers the other organization
$2 million to acquire it,
which the organization accepts.
Urban attire HR department,
then evaluate and adjust employee resourcing,
learning and development, and performance and
reward systems in order to make the merger successful.
The last form of common business strategies is
when an organization determines
that they need to downsize.
Downsizing is when jobs need to be eliminated in order to
maintain or improve
the organization's productivity and profitability.
When terminating an employee,
remember to be an employee champion by
making the process dignified and fair.
It's important to conduct exit interviews and establish
out placement support to
assist employees in finding new jobs.
It is also important to make sure the organization avoids
wrongful discharge and any grounds for litigation.
If an organization has a surplus of employees
and does not want to implement extensive layoffs,
it can incorporate shared work.
Shared work allows employees to work
reduced hours and collect partial unemployment benefits.
However, not every state allows employees to collect
unemployment compensation
while working and reduce positions.
After urban attire's acquisition of the young brand,
difficult decisions must be made regarding
the abundance of employees
within the expanded organization.
After much discussion, the HR department
decides the best course of
action is to partially downsize.
Urban attire decides to lay off
15% of their sales associates.
HR informs store managers
how many employees will need to be terminated,
and allows them to identify the employees that
will no longer be working for the organization.
The HR team conducts exit interviews with
each terminated employee and
offers referrals for future jobs.
In cases where workers are laid off,
the organization may need to abide by the WARN Act.
The WARN Act is
the Worker Adjustment and retraining Notification Act.
According to the US Department of Labor,
is intended to provide workers with sufficient time to
prepare for the transition between job
they currently hold and new jobs.
One important aspect of
the WARN Act is a warn notice requirement.
Legally, in the case of a mass layoff or a plant closing,
an organization needs to provide a written notice for
the action 60 days before it occurs.
This notice begins a rapid response process
with the state government
that includes providing information about
the labor market and job training and placement.
The WARN Act applies if an entire business closes
or if part of a business
closes and mergers and acquisitions,
the business responsible for
relaying the written notice of
closing will depend on the timing of the closing.
If the closing happens before a sale as effective,
the seller would need to send out
the notice and conversely,
if the closing happens after the sale,
the buyer would need to send out the notice.
It's likely that an HR professional will have
some part in the notification process.
You may need to answer questions about
the notification and play a part in
helping affected workers transition
to new work or training programs.
In order for an HR manager to
work as an effective strategic partner,
it is important that the strategies and goals
align with the strategies and goals of an organization.
Play video starting at :8:4 and follow transcript8:04
As an HR manager,
organizational restructuring is likely
to occur at some point in your career.
It is important to understand
the differences between the common business strategies.
Coming up, you'll learn more
about offshoring and outsourcing

In the last video,

you learned about HR's role in
restructuring within an organization.
Now, you will explore
two common business strategies that an HR
professional might support within
an organization; outsourcing and offshoring.
Outsourcing and offshoring are
two ways that can help a business runs smoothly.
Let's discuss and explore examples of each.
Outsourcing is a practice of paying
an outside entity to
perform specialized business functions.
These functions are generally outside of
an organization's core competencies.
Therefore, it's beneficial to hire
another entity to maintain that function for them.
A core competency is a specific function that
an organization regards as central to their success.
A few common examples of outsourcing include security,
food service, or payroll for an organization.
As an example, Slice U,
the business restaurant chain
sell fountain sodas and beverages.
They outsource the restocking and
maintenance of the beverage machine
to a third party vendor.
This arrangement means employees
just need to keep the machine clean,
but don't need to worry about refilling or fixing it.
The next business strategy an HR
professional needs to be familiar with is offshoring.
Offshoring is when an organization
establishes a foreign subsidiary and typically
shifts work from higher-paid American workers
to less expensive workers outside the US.
Offshoring is a popular concept when organizations
need to handle large labor-intensive functions.
Most frequently these functions
include customers service,
technical support, and computer programming.
For example, connective is
a global company working to connect businesses.
Connective uses offshore workers for some
of its email and chat-based customer service.
Play video starting at :2:12 and follow transcript2:12
Now, that you have learned the differences
between outsourcing and offshoring,
you can be prepared to support
these efforts as an HR professional.
Next, you will explore
an in-depth example of
the role of HR in organizational restructuring.

In this video, we will explore

a real-world example of the
role HR plays in restructuring.
Let's follow Alex, our human
resources employee at connective.
As a reminder, connective is
a modern communication organization that helps
businesses stay connected. Hence the name.
They specialize in helping distributed
workforce collaborate with a suite of
software tools like video conferencing
and Cloud-based phone systems.
Connective has a large, fully remote workforce.
Connective has been expanding
quickly and adding a lot of new clients.
There are many competitors in
the digital communication marketplace,
but Connective has succeeded by
offering personalized solutions to clients.
One of their competitors,
WireGrand, has not had the same success.
WireGrand grew very quickly as a company and
needed to urgently support their remote workers,
but they haven't been unable to keep up with the demand.
Customer service communication that WireGrand is poor.
Clients are moving their business to Connective.
The executive team at Connective
is interested in purchasing
WireGrand to acquire
its workers technology and brand awareness.
Connective CEO had a productive meeting with
the WireGrand CEO who disclosed
their interest is in selling the company.
Connective invites Alex from HR to
help the acquisition goes smoothly.
To start, Alex creates
a process map to identify the various departments at
both Connective and WireGrand and
illustrate how in fact they are interconnected.
The process map makes it clear to
Alex that there are a lot of overlaps
in the two companies and it should be
pretty straightforward to combine the teams.
Alex notices, however, that
the customer service team at WireGrand is
much smaller than the one at Connective.
Alex recommends a hiring push at
the same time of the acquisition to make sure that
all clients receive the same level of
support that Connective is known for.
After developing the process map,
Alex researches the executive and management teams
at WireGrand and feels confident
making recommendations about board and
management placements from both companies.
Finally, Alex spend significant time
learning about the work culture at WireGrand.
There are similarities, but
WireGrand has a much more cavalier approach to
business and fix it on
the fly model that will conflict with Connective,
slower and more measured approach.
Alex drafts a set of recommendations and how to reconcile
the two cultures so that
new Connective employees do feel welcomed.
But they're also fully aware of how
day-to-day operations will work going forward.
New training will be delivered as well as
a series of informal get-to-know-you
events that are just about having
fun as a new, bigger and team.
Alex is research and planning will prepare
both companies for a successful acquisition.
That's all from Alex for now.
Supporting Mergers and Acquisitions
is a task you might be
asked to perform in your future role
as an HR professional.
There is plenty of HR work to do before,
during and after a merger or acquisition and
the HR team can be
a huge benefit for any organizations restructuring.
Coming up, you'll finish this week by
learning about HR and business continuity.

Overview: The Role of Human

Resources in Organizational
Restructuring
The Role of Human Resources in
Organizational Restructuring
HR plays a key role in organizing and implementing common business strategies, including
organizational restructuring. Organizational restructuring can occur for a variety of reasons,
including increased or decreased competition or consumer demand and the identification or
redundancies within the organization. To manage organization restructuring, HR managers can
employ policies and practices in organization design, employee recruiting and retention, learning
and development, as well as performance and rewards. When conducting organizational
restructuring, it is important for HR to align its strategies and goals with those of the organization.
The organization’s strategies often include growth, concentration, mergers or acquisitions, and
downsizing.

Strategy 1: Growth
The growth stage is an important aspect of an organization’s life-cycle. The growth stage is most
important when the organization needs to recruit and retain workers in order to sell a product.
Excellent employees can be difficult to find and retain, so HR professionals can use a variety of
practices to help the organization achieve its goals related to organizational restructuring. These
practices can include employee referral payments, sign-on bonuses, relocation expenses, and
performance and reward systems.

Strategy 2: Concentration
Concentration is another useful strategy in restructuring. When an organization realizes that a
product or service is no longer profitable, they can abandon it in favor of those that are more
profitable. HR’s role in this strategy is to support the business units that are retained by the
organization. They will also recruit and retain employees that are most needed for the
organization’s future success.

Strategy 3: Mergers or Acquisitions

An organization will use mergers and acquisitions when the ownership of one organization or its
operating units are transferred or consolidated with another organization. HR plays an important
role in every stage of mergers or acquisitions, including before the deal is broached; during the
due diligence stage; in integration planning, where the cultures, policies, procedures, and goals
of the two organizations are combined; and throughout implementation.
Before the deal is broached, HR can prepare a process map to identify the organization’s
departments and their interconnectivity. A process map can also be created for the organization
that is the target of the merger or acquisition. During the process, HR can also place an
emphasis on recruitment, hiring, and retention.

When thinking about the future of the human capital in the organization, HR can consider a
series of questions that help set the strategic direction of the newly joined organizations:

 Employee Resourcing: Who will occupy which positions in the executive suite? Who
should be on the board of directors?
 Learning and Development: Are the work cultures similar or different? If they are different,
how will the differences be addressed?
 Performance and Reward: How will the best talent be retained? How are the performance
and reward systems of the two organizations aligned?

Strategy 4: Downsizing
Downsizing involves eliminating jobs in an effort to improve the organization's overall
performance and productivity. In this stage, job elimination can be temporary, such as a layoff,
or permanent, like dismissing an employee or a department.

The HR role in downsizing can include the following:

 Communicating details to employees and handling benefits and concerns

 Reviewing any legal issues that may arise
 Helping to maintain morale through an open communication and feedback process

Downsizing can be the most emotionally challenging stage of restructuring. . It’s important for HR
professionals to serve as an “employee champion” by making the process dignified and fair. It’s
also important to conduct exit interviews and establish outplacement support to assist employees
in finding new jobs. HR professionals must make sure that the organization avoids any actions of
wrongful discharge or other grounds for litigation.

If an organization has a surplus of employees and no extensive layoffs are required, it can
incorporate shared work. Shared work allows employees to work reduced hours and to collect
partial unemployment benefits. However, not all states allow employees to collect unemployment
compensation while working in reduced positions, so it is important to know the laws in your state
regarding this matter.

Conclusion

Organizational restructuring is one of the various stages of an organization’s life cycle. HR plays
a key role in each stage of the organizational restructuring process, which include growth,
concentration, merger or acquisition, and downsizing. Understanding your role can streamline
the process and make it easier and more efficient for everyone involved.

So far you've learned about the role of

human resources and organizational restructuring.
Achieving business goals and restructuring
the workplace requires creativity,
sensitivity, patience, and
personal focus from every team member.
This is where business continuity comes in.
In this video, you'll learn about the role of
human resources in business continuity.
As a reminder,
business continuity is the planning and actions that
an organization undertakes to ensure it can
operate critical business functions
during emergency events.
Business continuity can be at
risk because of threats to financial,
physical, information or
human assets or any combination of these four.
Because there are so many different threats
to business continuity,
companies typically need a detailed set of
plans to respond to each expected contingency.
Threats to business continuity fall
into three broad categories.
Natural, including disasters such as hurricanes,
floods, wildfires, or earthquakes.
Man-made, such as terrorism, thefts,
computer hacking or labor disputes,
and biological such as epidemics or bio-terrorism.
Other threats to continuity
can include the unexpected death
or resignation of a key employee such as the company CEO.
Business continuity should not only prepare organizations
for disruptions that will
completely stop business functions,
but also for events that will
adversely impact supply chains,
services, and other functions.
Coming up, you'll learn about divestitures.
Keep up the momentum.
Previously, you learned about the basics of business continuity.

In this video, you'll expand your knowledge and learn about divestitures.
A divestiture occurs when a business unit is partially or
completely disposed of through sale, exchange, closure, or bankruptcy.
Divestiture usually happens when an organization 's leadership decides
that the unit no longer aligns with its goals.
A divestiture can also be the result of a merger or
acquisition that makes a business unit redundant.
A divestiture might allow an organization to become profitable,
cut costs, repay its debts, and increase shareholder value.
During divestitures, HR teams often consult with corporate development
teams on topics such as retention programs.
HR's role includes gathering information on employee related content,
such as compensation and benefits.
HR also ensures that content related to the divestiture is accessible
to those who need it while maintaining employee privacy and protection.
Play video starting at :1:19 and follow transcript1:19
A divestiture can be unpleasant or disappointing, but
it's important that HR professionals approach the process with
sensitivity to keep an organization running smoothly.
Coming up, you'll learn about furloughs.
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As you've learned, there are many aspects of maintaining

organizational continuity and HR
plays an important role in these efforts.
In this video, you'll learn
about one more activity, furloughs.
A furlough is a mandatory suspension from work.
Employees are mandated by
the employer either to work fewer hours or to
take a temporary leave of absence from
work without any automatic right to payment.
Each organization determines its terms for the length of
the furlough and whether employees
will continue to receive health benefits.
The expectation is that
employees will return to work either in
full capacity or with
reduced hours at the end of the furlough.
Crisis, such as COVID-19,
often cause organizations to furlough employees.
For example, at the beginning of
the pandemic, the safety requirements,
including reduced staffing and close restaurants,
resulted in a furlough in
Slice U for almost all of its employees.
There are a few ways HR
participates in the furlough process.
First, organizations instituting furloughs
must be in compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act,
and HR can help ensure
the organization remains compliant.
HR can also be part of the team that
decides which employees should be furloughed.
These decisions consider various criteria,
such as which positions are most critical
to the organization's operations.
HR also explains the furlough terms to
employees and contact them with updates.
Furloughs differ from layoffs,
which happen when there is not enough work for all of
the employees and employers need to cut costs.
When employees are laid off,
they can eventually be rehired
if the organization chooses to do so.
HR often works alongside supervisors and
managers to decide which employees are laid off.
In these cases, HR is
responsible for relaying the decisions to
the employees and explaining
plans such as severance pay and outplacement services.
HR also ensures compliance with state and federal laws,
such as the Federal Worker
Adjustment and Retraining Notification
or Warn Act,
which requires certain organizations to provide
30-day notice prior to layoffs.
Play video starting at :2:39 and follow transcript2:39
In a time of crisis,
furloughs can be a crucial tool
to preserve business continuity.
Now you know the basics of this process.

Overview: The Role of Human

Resources in Business
The Role of Human Resources in
Business Continuity
Business continuity refers to how an organization will function during and after a natural or man-
made disaster, biological emergency, or an internal emergency, such as the death of an
organization’s CEO. In an emergency, business continuity can be at risk because of threats to
financial, physical, information, or human assets—or a combination of any of these.
Organizations need detailed response plans that provide information about how to respond to
disasters and emergencies. These plans often include objectives to manage risk while also
caring for an organization’s most important assets: their employees.

Creating a Business Continuity Plan

According to Linkedin, an effective business continuity plan should include several factors.

Plan
The most important part of business continuity is planning. The focus of the plan is to recover
from an emergency and resume function as quickly as possible. This recovery can be
complicated in a time of crisis as organizations face many challenges affecting operations. .
Additionally, organizations must also safeguard and support their employees. During an
emergency, businesses need to guide employees through the following: where they will be
working, how they will get paid, what hours they will work, how to communicate with colleagues
and management, and more.

Technology
Technology can be an advantage to business continuity. Cloud-based software allows
organizations to organize data and security with remote access. Employee communications and
training can continue via platforms such as Microsport Teams and Zoom. These tools allow
organizations to support employees, provide essential services, and continue operations.

Data Security
HR departments handle highly confidential personal information, such as bank accounts, Social
Security numbers, payroll information, and more. During a crisis, HR needs to ensure that
information remains private and secure. Telecom outages can restrict an organization's ability to
access data over a VPN, and natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, and tornadoes can
destroy paper information. Consider cloud-based storage of confidential information to support
business continuity. .

Care for Employees

During an emergency, it is important to remember the organization’s employees. Keep them
informed and reassured that everything is under control. Provide updates about the current
situation and what is expected of them. If employee morale is down, offer support, such as
counseling. In some cases, disaster changes an organization’s budget and procedures. When
this happens, employees may need to relocate, shift to another job, or, unfortunately, be
terminated. It’s important to be transparent, keep lines of communication open, and respond to
employees in a timely manner.

Test and Review

While creating a plan is important, it is equally important to test and modify it. For example,
organizations can hold monthly evacuation drills. Knowing what to do in a crisis can help to avoid
panic during an actual disaster. Also, review the business continuity plan regularly with managers
and team leads. If needed, make changes to the plan before disaster strikes.

Conclusion
Unfortunately, there is no way to completely avoid disasters. They often occur in the most
unlikely of times. A business continuity plan can help your entire organization, from executives to
employees, know what to do when a disaster strikes.