High concern

Arguably the worst part of the professional communicator’s role is the need to communicate bad news, or more specifically redundancies. It’s a role many of us have had to fulfil in recent months and given the range of approaches taken, begs the question as to whether there is a ‘right way’.

To start with, let’s clarify precisely why the communication component of any announcement is important. First, with redundancy high on any list of stressful experiences, behaving and being seen to behave with common decency is important. After all, brand is what brand does. Second, a majority of staff will ‘survive’ and making sure we support and continue to engage this group is equally important. And third there is still a business to run and a brand identity to uphold so if nothing else the communication process must do all it can minimise the damage done to business as usual.

Moving to the debate, is there a right way to structure the overall process? Employee consultation is a legal requirement in the UK and across the EU which means an announcement stating intention to proceed followed by the consultation period itself is a mandatory component. So little room for manoeuvre here. (Go to http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employeeinformationandconsultation/DG_10028095 for more details). Choices though arise once the consultation is complete and the outcome known and this in my experience is where division of opinion is most likely.

One coherent argument is that once ‘the list’ of affected employees is finalised, we should simply notify those colleagues of their fate and not involve anyone unaffected. Assuming notification happens face to face (and thankfully in my experience no organisation has sought to do it any other way), the issue is efficiently dealt with and broadly speaking achieves each of the objectives set out above. There is though a very obvious counter-argument that such an approach pre-announces the news (face to face meetings need to be scheduled so if you have one, you know what’s coming) and makes the process much harder to implement. Much better therefore to give everyone a slot regardless of their fate and work it through properly. That way everyone has the chance to talk through what it means for them. So plenty of scope for discussion here!

Another area for debate is around the ‘who’. Whose voice should be heard at what stage in the process? There should be little dispute that the most senior voice should be heard at the beginning (any other trivialises the news) but what about the act of notification. The line manager is the obvious choice though s/he may lack the skills. HR is an alternative as it is their specialism though this absolves managers of their responsibilities. There is also the local senior manager/director though the numbers involved may make this logistically challenging.

Then there is the discussion about ownership. Is a redundancy announcement a communication process requiring HR input or the other way around? This is very likely to depend upon the complexity of the announcement and factors such as numbers involved, variation in redundancy terms being offered and union involvement. The more complex the situation, the more significant the role of HR becomes.

If isn’t already obvious, the answer is almost certainly that there is no ‘right way’. I’ve yet to be involved in two processes that were the same or where the post-announcement debrief didn’t identify things we would have done differently. Core principles yes, but rigid process absolutely not. All of which underlines the importance of giving the communication side of any redundancy announcement the attention it deserves so that those all important objectives can be achieved.