What you should do when redundancy threatens your team

Since the start of the recession many managers attending our management training courses have raised their concerns over how to deal effectively when redundancy threatens their team. With the economic situation still very unsettled a good many managers and supervisors may well have to cope with the experience of managing more redundancies in their companies this year.

All redundancies leave their mark on the staff who remain in the organisation. This is because dismissals lower morale in the whole company and so often lead to declines in productivity, just when managers and supervisors need everyone to be working as efficiently as possible. Even redundancies in a different department could damage the motivation of your team. So whenever you are faced with redundancies in your company you need to think not only of those being made redundant, but of the remaining people too.

So how should you handle this problem correctly? The reaction remaining staff exhibit to redundancies is dependent on two key questions: 1. Are the redundancies believed to be justified and fair? 2. What changes in working practices do the redundancies bring?

If redundancies are on the cards, the following procedure is advisable:

Keep Your Staff Informed. When the rumour of impending redundancies grows strong, the staff develop an understandable hunger for more information. In particualr they want to know who will be affected? When will the dismissals be announced? Will there be a second and a third wave of dismissals? What criteria are being applied? Which departments will primarily be affected? And above all, to what extent can one trust the senior management and their statements?

This situation requires the manager or supervisor to inform their staff as fully as possible! The too regularly pursued policy of secrecy simply leads to wild fantasies and paralyses the team.

Be Sure To Offer Help. Dismissals directly threaten the economic livelihood of those directly affected and this will indirectly concern the remaining staff. Let the staff know what you are doing for those who will be made redundant, such as redundancy payments, transition payments and out-placement counselling. Treat both victims and those who had a ‘narrow escape’ with dignity and utmost respect. Here the important thing is what you say to staff and how, when and where you say it. The more openness and fairness the company management displays, the more motivated the remaining staff will be after the dismissals.

Keep Your Door Open. Be available and offer your staff the chance to have a talk with you at the critical time of dismissals. Even if you disagree with your senior management’s line, don’t withdraw from your own staff. You may not owe this to your company, but you do owe it to the team entrusted to you.

Hold A Dignified Ceremony. Sociologists know that major turning-points in a person’s life are easier to cope with if they are accompanied by formal ceremonies so make this happen fo those affected and the remaining staff. Let staff leave in such a way that they are not just left with negative feelings of the process! Give the remaining team members a chance to examine the changed situation and discuss these changes in specially called team meetings. Delegate the chairmanship of these meetings to a staff member, but do this with sensitivity and tact.

Involve The Team In Any Reorganisation. It is often necessary to adapt the organisation of the company in general, and of the affected teams in particular, to the new framework conditions following redundancy. Approach your steam for suggestions as to how work can be done more efficiently with less people. Dismissals may be beyond the control of your staff, but by involving them in the reorganisation of the work you give some control back to them. Be prepared to adjust the workload to the new staffing level. It makes no sense to reduce the number of employees but not identify and then minimise the avoidable workload. A British oil company, for example, reduced the number of reports by 25% and then slimmed down the annual budgeting talks from three months to six weeks.

Look To Improve The Quality Of Work For The Remaining People. Your staff will be prepared to achieve more if you can make their work more varied, more challenging, more interesting and with more responsibility as this allows more scope for initiative. Involve your team in decisions, promote team work and delegate tasks too. You may, at this stage need to provide management training for those taking on more of a supervisory role.

Identify And Point Out The New Opportunities. A sensible personnel reduction programme always goes hand-in-hand with a major reorganisation programme. Immediately after dismissals the belief often spreads amongst the survivors that ‘there’s nothing here any more anyway’! Counteract this gloom-mongering with the following measures. Consciously set goals that are not too stretching and are, therefore, more achievable. You can improve the self-confidence of your team by giving them a small sense of achievement. Highlight successes with special ceremonies, commendations and bonuses. Most people learn quickly when they can see the positive results of others’ work. Explain new opportunities fully. Nothing motivates people more than the principle of ‘hope’. May be you can re-vamp the bonus systems or create new incentives and then show your team how they can achieve these. Management training and coaching their staff will certainly help, as these supportive actions demonstrate managements’ real commitment to the future for their people.

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