No Weak Links: Building Supply Chain Resilience
07.03.2023
Unrelenting pressure on company supply chains from increased costs and geo-political uncertainty is creating unacceptable lead times. For many manufacturers this poses a strategic risk to their business and, as a result, they are placing their supply chains under the microscope and adopting a range of strategies to manage relationships with suppliers at home and overseas.
The Make UK/Infor No Weak links: Building Supply Chain Resilience report found that companies from both the EU and, further afield, are now significantly more cautious about supplying into the UK. This could be for a range of reasons including the difficult political relationships affecting trade between the UK and EU, the trading landscape having become practically more difficult with the EU, the prospect of regulatory divergence and, the broader global challenge for competitiveness being played out between economic superpowers including the EU.
Supply chain disruption has created unprecedented times for businesses across the globe in recent years, a pattern of volatility which is fast approaching a permanent state. However, resilience in supply chains is growing and driving new behaviours as companies diversify and increasingly seek new ways of doing business and managing their processes.
There is no escaping volatility, but use of the right supply chain technologies can dramatically mitigate the worst impacts of disruption. Whilst the report shows nearly half of manufacturers are taking advantage of analytics for improving visibility, the real value will come from increased use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to help identify and predict events, analyse the best alternatives, and automate responses, giving manufacturers a competitive edge.
There is no general obligation on an employer to consider bumping, but in some circumstances it may be unreasonable not to do so. We therefore recommend that, if you are an employer who is considering making redundancies, you think seriously about whether bumping is appropriate, as a failure to consider it might make a dismissal unfair. It is advisable to record the fact that you have considered bumping as an option and the rationale for whatever decision you have made. As part of your considerations, various factors will need to be taken into account, for example: how different the two jobs are (including the difference in remuneration between the two jobs); the relative length of service of the two employees; and the qualifications of the employee at risk of redundancy.
Sometimes, a potentially redundant employee will raise the question of bumping themself. However, there is case law indicating that the fact that an employee has not raised it does not necessarily mean that you do not need to consider it.
Often, employers will prefer not to bump, as it can be detrimental to employee relations and can complicate what might otherwise be a more straightforward redundancy process. That said, it is important not to overlook the fact that bumping will sometimes provide business benefits and might be something that you want to implement, particularly where a highly skilled employee's role is being eliminated and they are happy to downgrade.
If you are a Make UK subscriber, you can speak to your regular adviser for further guidance and/or access information about redundancies, including template policies and drafting guidance, in the Redundancies section of our HRL Resources.
If you are not a Make UK subscriber, you can contact us for further support on this topic or to access our resources. Please click here for information on how we can help your business.