The
number one redundancy mistake organisations make.
The
number one mistake organisations make when undertaking redundancies processes
is going too fast.
Speed
introduces the risk that either the people or processes are not fully prepared.
By people I mean the managers that have to actually make the announcements.
Processes refer to the backend calculations of payout entitlements, legal
checking etc. There is nothing more unprofessional than redundancy letters that
have the wrong amount on it. Worse still is the message this sends to departing
staff: “you care about me so little you
couldn’t even get a simple figure right”. Now that’s a strong statement,
but we’ve heard it more than once.
Here
are the two reasons why organisations fail to get the pace of redundancies
right.
#1: Human Nature. It is natural for people to
get unpleasant things over and done with as quickly as possible. As a manager,
telling someone they don’t have a job is the most unpleasant part of managing.
I heard recently that a decision to layoff staff was made by the Executive of
an organisation on the Friday, communicated to the HR Manager on the Monday to
begin two days later on the Wednesday. The key learning from this process was
that the managers at the coalface did not have sufficient time to prepare. It
was too fast.
#2 Artificial Deadline. 30th June. End
of financial year is the typical artificially created deadline to have
redundancy processes finished and staff off the books. We see it every June –
companies moving fast to meet this date when they simply did not start early enough
or the decision was made in June, not April or May.
There
is an ideal pace for redundancy. Starting from the planning stage through to
post implementation requires thoughtful planning and consideration of the
impact of decisions on all those involved.
Pace Matters.
Clickhere for our tip sheet for Managers and for HR Managers
Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions regarding the Announcement Process, we are happy to talk you through it.
