Involve everyone
The problem with downsizing is that what is good for your company’s coffers is most likely bad for your employees. Saving money means cutbacks, closures and layoffs. Employees generally don’t react well to any of the three.
Perry recognized that, so before he even talked to his leadership team about formulating a communication strategy, he sat down with them and formed a detailed plan for the company’s direction and explained the reasoning behind the decisions that would affect the entire company.
“Before you even talk about communication, you have to make sure you have clearly thought out the direction you’re going to go, the issues everyone will be facing and that you have all stakeholders on the same page,” Perry says. “It’s important that once you start the communication process, that everybody is aligned.”
The plan has to start at the top and work its way down. Managers at all levels of the organization need to have a say in the plan, so that each executive and manager can take a sense of ownership in the company’s future direction.
From there, corporate management can begin communicating with managers down the line and on to employees and associates on the lower rungs of the company.
“During any kind of crisis period, there are all kinds of rumors, so you can’t afford to have different and mixed messages coming from the different levels of management,” Perry says. “It’s very important that you clearly get the leadership team focused on where you’re going, how you’re going to get there, what this will mean in terms of any of the stakeholders in the company. After that, you need to make sure that you’re available, that you’re approachable, so that you can support any of the communications that go out.”
Perry started communicating the need for change via e-mail and voice mail. He left a personal message on the voice mail at every employee desk. His leadership team sent out memos outlining the need to reduce Yazaki’s structure for the sake of staying competitive. Follow-up written communication helped keep employees abreast of the plan as it progressed.
“We wanted to be sure that everyone always had more advance information if we were going to do anything in terms of concrete actions that were going to affect the work force,” Perry says.
It’s critical to keep people involved in the plan from the first steps. It’s one of the best ways to engage managers and employees and enable them to have their voices heard as the company is changing.
The bottom line is, even when you have to communicate bad news, it will make a lot more sense to your people if they feel like you have gone out of your way to explain the reasoning.
“If you get people involved in the development, they know what questions were asked during the development phase, how you arrived at the conclusion you arrived at, why you’re going where you’re going. Then, when you start the communication process, you have consistent communication throughout the organization.”
In order to stay visible and accessible, Perry uses the tried-and-true method of management by walking around. The term might be an overused business cliché, but Perry says it’s still relevant.
“It can be casual,” he says. “I eat lunch in the cafeteria every day. People can join me, or sometimes I just join a table of associates. It’s sort of an open forum. They can ask me any question they want, whenever they want. They can ask me in the cafeteria, in the hallway, in casual meetings, wherever they are. And through all of it, they’re always hearing the same message. And you can’t be afraid to answer tough questions.”
When hard times hit, your willingness or lack of willingness to candidly answer tough questions can go a long way toward either reinforcing or tearing down your culture. Your willingness to answer challenging questions — and your employees’ willingness to believe your answers — is rooted in how you conducted yourself before the crisis.
“Honesty and integrity are characteristics that are extremely important,” Perry says. “If you have built credibility within the work force, there is really no reason to be concerned about being available for answering the tough questions.”
Perry says you can’t have different policies for different situations. In your employees’ minds, either you are open and straightforward at all times or you’re not. And if you’re not, your integrity will suffer.
“You have to give the good news and the bad news,” he says. “You have to talk about where the company is going in the long term and the impact it will have on everyone. Sometimes, you’re not going to achieve what you would have liked to achieve. It all goes back to honest and open communication.
“Don’t give anyone the feeling that you’re holding back and hiding something because you’re afraid of the consequences. That’s not a position you want to put yourself or your company in. Employees sense that, react to that, and it takes away from doing the things that need to be done so that your company can survive and recover from the crisis.”
