You ask: My Company was recently ‘merged’ with another. To be honest we have been taken over but it was communicated as a merger with the senior executive promising that there would be no redundancies.
As a manager of an engineering design team I was involved in communicating the merger to my staff and have been actively involved in the organizational review that followed. It became clear very early on that it wouldn’t make sense to have two engineering groups and although I have fought very hard to save all my people I have now been told that I have to loose three engineers from my design team and two support staff.
I know I’m not the only manager in this position and have been given clear guidelines to follow but I’m dreading having to tell my people this bad news and take them through the redundancy process that must follow. Can you provide any advice as to how I can soften the blow?
Janet answers: When you say soften the blow I’m wondering who you have in mind; you or your staff? Having to make people redundant is something that every manager hopes they will never have to do. Unfortunately with the increasing number of private equity take-overs the number of redundancy programmes is rising too.
The question is who would you rather have managing your team’s redundancy process; you or someone who doesn’t know the individuals concerned? I’m guessing that you (and every manger in this position) would want to stay in control of this.
That said, telling a person that their job is no longer needed is not a pleasant task so you’re reluctance is understandable. However, the important fact here is it is the job, not the person that is being made redundant; a subtle but important difference for everyone to acknowledge.
You say you have clear guidelines to follow in selecting candidates for redundancy. Assuming that these comply with statutory legislation you are likely to be asked to handout:
1 Letters to all employees in affected departments notifying them that
their job may be at risk. Union representatives will normally be informed in advance and encouraged to work with management to facilitate rather than hamper the process.
2 Information outlining the calculations the company will be using to work out redundancy payments. This is so that every employee can work out their own entitlements should their job be made redundant.
3 Letters requesting that anyone interested in volunteering for redundancy make themselves known to their manager.
Some monetary incentive may be offered but the company will reserve the right to refuse should certain individuals be deemed to be in critical roles.
This is all before any specific individuals in the ‘at risk’ job category are approached. So you may be lucky and find that the number of jobs you have been asked to loose can be met through voluntary redundancies.
Most anxiety and stress surrounding redundancy is generated in that ‘don’t know if that means me’ period. Obviously managers must follow procedure to ensure that no one is mislead about their job security, but once it comes down to the crunch the old adage of ‘do unto others as you would they should do unto you’ comes into play. In general people want to know where they stand; for better or worse. Once there is certainty action can be taken.
Once the first announcement of job losses goes out I would suggest your priority be to set up a formal communications process. By telling your people how and when you will be keeping them updated you keep control of the time required to manage downwards. You’ll need the rest of the time to manage upwards - you might as well give up trying to do any other productive work during this period.
No doubt the biggest challenge in a redundancy situation is keeping abreast of developments that may impact your team as the redundancy process plays out. An over subscription of voluntary redundancies in one area may mean that an individual ‘at risk’ can be offered another role within company rather than make them redundant. They may choose not to accept it but that at least it is their choice.
Make sure you can ‘buy into’ the company’s reasons for the redundancy and the
selection criteria to be used. Remember that you are the Company as far as your staff are concerned don’t take any animosity personally.
I’m not sure that you can soften the blow without appearing to trivialise the situation that both you and your team find themselves in. Rather that you get on with the business a hand, be as honest as you can given the circumstances and treat all your staff with respect whether they are to remain with the company or not.
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