A VOLUNTARY EXIT programme in RT\u00c9 failed to deliver the scale of departures needed by the broadcaster to meet plans for staff cuts.<\/p>\n
An internal analysis said substantial work had been put into preparing early exit packages for staff but only a relatively small number eventually received offers.<\/p>\n
It said there were challenges in running the Voluntary Exit Programme (VEP), including a narrow window to apply that placed too much strain on people considering whether to leave.<\/p>\n
The analysis also said the criteria for the voluntary exit programme were \u201crestrictive.\u201d<\/p>\n
It said redundancies could only be considered where a staff departure involved \u201c100 percent direct suppression\u201d of their post or \u201c100 percent equivalent cost savings.\u201d<\/p>\n
All other applications that did not meet these criteria were excluded, according to records released under Freedom of Information.<\/p>\n
The analysis explained: \u201cThe narrow window to run the VEP programme and secure exits by 31 December 2025 placed a strain on the process and on individuals in making the decision to accept, or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe later opening of the scheme, April 2025, with closing date for applications on 26 May 2025, did not allow sufficient time to significantly evolve our operating model behind the exits.\u201d<\/p>\n
It said running the numbers for 134 early exit applicants involved \u201csignificant\u201d effort and cost for the HR and finance departments of RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n
That resulted in \u201cforty-plus\u201d offers being made to staff.<\/p>\n
The analysis said: \u201cWith just a 60 percent acceptance rate, this compounds the effort \/ cost challenge with the 2025 terms.\u201d<\/p>\n
It said overall the scheme had strong governance and consistency which helped ensure fairness and standardisation across RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n
\u201cUniform business cases and centralised data helped reduce complexity and made it easier to verify compliance with Department approval,\u201d the document added.<\/p>\n
However, it warned the low take-up rate could have implications for future redundancy programmes within the organisation.<\/p>\n
It said: \u201cIf the 2025 experience was to be replicated, we would need to make around 500 offers to achieve 300 exits.\u201d<\/p>\n
An RT\u00c9 spokesman said its five-year strategy stated that RT\u00c9 plans to reduce its headcount by up to 400 in the period up to 2029.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cRT\u00c9 delivered 97 exits in 2025, 67 VEP exits and 30 additional role suppressions, with savings of \u20ac8.5 million per year from this year onwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spokesman said that each voluntary exit programme required government approval and that a business case was submitted to the Department for the next scheme.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope to open [it] in the coming months, and for a longer period than the 2025 VEP,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cRT\u00c9 remains confident it can achieve the proposed number of up to 400 exits from the organisation across the five years of the strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A VOLUNTARY EXIT programme in RT\u00c9 failed to deliver the scale of departures needed by the broadcaster to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[19869,18,233,117,19,17,1109,42382,1181,128],"class_list":["post-658203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-broadcasting","tag-eire","tag-employment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-media","tag-redundancy","tag-rte","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117164204864438522","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}