Cushion the blow
You might think the act of performing layoffs might be the most difficult hurdle to clear in a corporate downsizing. But it’s not.
Walking into an office and telling a person that he or she has lost his or her job is gut-wrenching, but once it’s done, it’s over. Then, you get into the real mess: cleaning up the fallout for those who are left at your company.
One round of layoffs can rock your company to its foundation. Campbell and his leadership team had to oversee five rounds in a five-year period.
Each time, Campbell had to gather his people together and lay out the future for them.
“We had an overall division meeting with the team, where I discussed what had happened, why it had happened and what our go-forward strategy was going to be,” Campbell says. “We also wanted to address it from an educational standpoint, really trying to work through the emotions and showing people why we had to make the decisions we did, given the environment we felt the future would hold.”
Getting the team together in one physical location is an effective way to regroup as an organization, and it was a critical element in Campbell’s communication plan.
What Campbell said was important, but perhaps not as important as the mere fact that, as the division leader, he was willing to get up in front of every person in the company, face them and speak to them in person.
“If you’ve developed your culture the way we have, you develop a lot of good peer-to-peer relationships,” he says. “When you’re letting a large number of people go, it’s almost like asking your friend to walk out the door. So it is difficult. That’s why we wanted to get everyone together in one location and have a half-hour, 45-minute conversation.
“I shared some remarks about how we did (the cuts) and how the former employees were treated and shared what the business strategy would be going forward. Then, we allowed people to ask questions and did our best to answer those questions.”
It might sound like what you’ve heard time and time again, but the lesson still rings true: You need to remain forthright and honest in your communication with employees. Disclose everything that you’re allowed to disclose. Showing compassion means delivering bad news in a sympathetic way, not glossing over bad news and withholding information. Employees need the full story if they are to maintain their confidence in management.
“Openness and honesty is probably the most important piece of advice I could give,” Campbell says. “There are obviously certain things that you can’t communicate from a business or confidentiality standpoint, but you can certainly communicate things from a big-picture standpoint. You can communicate why decisions are being made, what is happening in the industry and how it is leading to some of the tough decisions that have to be made.
“I was honest with the team during the reductions in force. I told them that I didn’t know if we were done, if we had made all the cuts we were going to make. You never want to guarantee and make promises to individuals that you might not be able to keep.”
