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Getting People Back to Work After Organizational Earthquakes
By Anne Baber & Lynne Waymon
Co-creators of the FireProof Your Career Guide
Whether it’s a Friday afternoon layoff or a highly touted acquisition, any change spurs employee worry about job security. With dramatic shifts in the business environment making front-page news across the U.S., employee fears escalate – even when it isn’t their organization making the headlines. Their biggest concern: “Just what is the ‘deal’ I have with my employer?”
How are your employees doing? If they fit into one of these three scenarios, helping them become more change-resilient needs to start now.
1. They’re anxious, but have no specific information. They may be seeing or sensing things that have shaken their faith in their job security. They may know that the organization is having financial problems or is in an acquisition mode or that there’s a possibility of a merger.
2. They know that layoffs loom. The “L-word” has been mentioned – either internally or by the media. When the first newspaper story broke about IHOP buying Applebee’s, the article implied that layoffs would be inevitable.
3. They’ve already been through a layoff.
Researchers agree that, when organizational upheavals occur,
· 70-80% of employees are apathetic. They take a wait and see attitude. They’re traumatized, frozen, shaken, disillusioned. After a series of layoffs, one employee said, “We’re all temps here.” Some may envy those who have been laid off because, as one employee put it, “They are moving on; I’m stuck here doing the work of three people!”
· 10-15% are hostile and may actively sabotage the change efforts.
· 10-15% are excited and seem ready to invest in the future.
What can you do so that employees accept the new reality; re-engage, re-commit, trust the leadership again; and get back to work? Here are 5 tips.
1. Focus In
Pay more attention to the stayers. (Yes, let’s call them “stayers,” not “survivors.” Think about it. If an employee “survives” one layoff, but is laid off later, then what is he? You’re setting him up to be not a survivor – i.e. dead. Let’s not make continued employment with the organization a matter of life or death!)
Stayers are the leftovers after the layoff. They’ll need a lot of help to bounce back and stick with you. “Survivor guilt” is real. Nancy Rollins, Principal, NRG HR Consulting, has been involved with both good and bad layoffs. “After a bad one, low morale and engagement continued for much longer than the normal 4 to 6 weeks,” she said. “You can expect 10-15% to jump ship, and those people typically are your middle to good performers. They’re thinking, ’If this happens again, I won’t be so lucky.’”
Typically, pre-downsizing efforts target the leavers, rather than those who will be needed to keep it all together. As much as 75-85% of the management team’s efforts focus on those who are exiting.
“Few companies do it well,” says Donna Miller, Principal, Executive Resource Center, LLC. “Having a plan for getting people through the change is essential.”
2. Be Respectful
Treat the leavers with respect. The stayers are watching! Their trust in management will be determined by how well they think you are treating those people who are going out the door. Tom Moore, Director Human Resources, Molex, Inc. Commercial Products Division, has managed three major layoffs in the past seven years. He cautions, “Don’t allow layoffs to destroy your reputation. Our turnover is less than 1%. Our good people aren’t jumping ship. That says something about the way we’ve treated people.”
In some companies, leavers are marched out of their offices by security or HR people. The expectation is that, if they aren’t evicted, they’ll harm the organization. This is criminalizing people who formerly were valued members of the employee family! Rollins says, “The organization is judged on how harshly or benevolently they treat people as they exit.”
Ideally, companies should realize the value of their alumni and even provide yearbooks with contact information, so that employees are encouraged to stay in touch with those who have left. Companies can honor the contributions made by departing employees and publicly appreciate their work. “Those who leave are not the enemy. Help them continue to be part of the work family,” suggests Rollins.
3. Over-communicate
Make sure your head’s in the right place. Miller, who has orchestrated layoff after layoff, passed along this valuable insight. Leadership, she noted, has had weeks – maybe months – of time to get used to the idea of layoffs. They’ve already gone through the stages that all employees go through: 1. shock, 2. transition, and 3. re-vitalization. So when they begin communicating with employees, they are excited and committed – in stage 3. They don’t realize that employees are back at stage 1 – the shock/grief stage.
Involve your internal communications staff to provide full-spectrum information. Even if you don’t have all the answers, talk to employees through all your media. Emphasize face-to-face communications.
Convince people that “When we know something, we’ll tell you.” If there’s a communication vacuum, employees will fill in the blanks, invent their own answers, and interpret silence as lack of leadership – “They don’t know what they’re doing.” Make managers and supervisors accountable for passing information along. Provide scripts or talking points. Often, front-line managers aren’t sure what they are supposed to tell people. “Promise chaos,” urges Miller. If you don’t, when you announce changes, no matter how small and inconsequential, people will think you’ve been lying to them.
Make leaders visible. They must look backward: share the grief people feel when colleagues leave. Encourage leaders to acknowledge emotions – their own and those of the stayers. They must look forward: Coach them to lay out the future and enlist the troops – re-recruit them – in marching into the future. Rollins remembers that after that badly handled layoff, “Nobody felt secure. There was an all-employee meeting to inspire the workforce, but it didn’t work because the president couldn’t define the future and left people hanging with uncertainties and ambiguities.”
4. Re-Build Relationships
Layoffs destroy people’s networks. “Social networks put (employees) in the thick of information flows and are the best predictors of productivity,” says Kathleen Melymuka in a February 2007 Computerworld article. The productivity of stayers depends on rebuilding relationships with superiors, subordinates, peers, people in other departments, suppliers, vendors, and customers, as well as maintaining relationships with employees who are leaving.
Help employees re-make their internal and external networks. They need your support because their natural tendency, in the aftermath of trauma, is to withdraw. University of Michigan Professor Wayne Baker says that after layoffs “enlightened leaders help their people learn new ways, new methods, and new networking skills, via massive education, training, and re-socialization efforts.”
Educate through all your available media. Provide articles on networking. Make our book, Make Your Contacts Count: Networking Know-How for Business and Career Success, AMACOM 2007), available. Train people, so they can forge connections easily and quickly. Offering training signals to stayers that they are valuable to the organization and helps them move toward re-commitment. Socialize. Personal ties bind employees to organizations. Set up a committee or task force to involve employees. Encourage volunteer activities that bring people together. Have picnics. Start a softball team. Get departments together for lunch. Set up an alumni group, to help remaining employees stay in touch with those who have left.
5. Provide Tools
Give employees who remain tools to take charge of their own careers. Help them re-gain that sense of control that is lost when layoffs happen. When they have these tools, they will know how to create a future of their own choosing, rather than feeling buffeted by the cyclones of change.
We propose a motto for the new workplace: “Be eager to stay and prepared to go.” It’s tricky – almost an oxymoron. Two opposites: “Eager to stay and prepared to go.” But that’s the reality. That’s the mindset of the “change-ready employee.” That’s leveling with employees, treating them like adults. That’s your job. That mindset will ensure greater productivity, no matter what change state your workplace finds itself in.
What can you do to get people back to work? Spell it out for them. “Here’s the deal: We can’t guarantee your job is safe, but we can help you prepare to handle whatever comes.” *
Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon are co-founders of Contacts Count. The 2nd edition of their fifth book together is Make Your Contacts Count (AMACOM 2007). They also are co-creators of the FireProof Your Career Guide, the downloadable, 10-part, multi-media career security planning and management product. Request your Executive Review Copy at www.FireProofYourCareer.com. Organizations license both the FireProof Guide and The Contacts Count Networking System – putting the tools of networking to work in the service of business goals. Visit www.ContactsCount.com or call 301-589-8633 to learn more.
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