Improving Morale After Redundancies

Once the reduction in employees has taken place the staff that remain will probably be expected to achieve more and may have additional responsibilities placed on them. How do you get the best from your staff now that they feel uncertain about their future and how do you improve morale?

There are five key areas that need to be considered and worked with carefully on an ongoing basis. They are listed below in their order of importance:

Communication

Honesty & Transparency

Training & Development

New objectives and targets

New bonus plans and incentives

Communication

If you do not communicate your employees will feel you are hiding things and rest assured they will create their own news to spread, and that news could be so far from the truth you wouldn't believe it. This must never be allowed to happen.

You should communicate clearly and regularly with as much positive information as possible. Examples of positive communication can include, new orders, new customers, increased efficiency, improvements that can be seen and measured since the redundancies have taken place and new targets and objectives that are being achieved.

There are many ways to communicate i.e. information and notice boards, news letters, meetings and presentations to name a few. A combination of these gives the best results. Update your information and notice boards at the very least weekly, issue news letters by e-mail or with payroll monthly where possible and never forget that face to face meetings can really make the difference where employees have the opportunity to ask questions.

Honesty & Transparency

Some would argue that this should be number one in order of importance, but if you do not communicate effectively, how you can ever be seen as being honest and transparent, after all regular effective communication is part of being transparent.

The last thing you need now for morale is for the remaining staff to be continually uncertain about their jobs and the future of the business. As a senior manager or director of the business you will be accustomed to the business risks and there degree of risk. You may have contingency plans in place. Not all this information can be, or should be shared. Many employees will not be able to cope with this type of information; it could have an adverse effect.

The prime objective with honesty and transparency is to give accurate and true information at all times. Most employees realise that not all information can be shared but what is, must be true.

Training & Development

Following redundancies many other costs are cut including the training and development budget. Now is the time to review your methods of training and development, if you have a HR Manager or department this should be a task given to them immediately following any redundancies. How do you continue to train and develop the employees without the associated costs?

This is so essential. You now have members of staff that are expected to deliver more and have increased responsibilities. They will need support, training and development to achieve this. Look in house. Identify your best people in each role, find out why they are the best and how you can share that information. In house training and development can be forgotten when profits are strong, now is the time to focus on an in house system again.

Senior managers and directors will have been on many management training courses, they probably still have the course material. With only four topics and four managers you can deliver one training and development workshop per quarter for the next year. Think outside the box. Continuing to train and develop your staff is so important to morale.

New Objectives & Targets

Out with the old and in with the new! Your business plans have now changed to suit the current market conditions, don't fall into the trap of believing your old objectives and targets are still achievable or even if they are the correct areas to focus on following your redundancies.

Review your business plan and your key objectives, they might only be for three months and then need to be reviewed again.

As human beings we all like to feel successful. Having realistic targets and objectives that reflect the current climate and the business priorities should be implemented and communicated as early as possible. They could be based on exceeding your predicted rate of recovery.

New Bonus Plans & Incentives

Think long and hard before you suspend or terminate the employees existing bonus plans and incentive schemes. Employee income does have a large part to play with morale and is immediate. Consider suspending employee benefits first where possible, benefits such as pension contributions are not normally so immediate to your employees.

Reduced bonus plans and changes to incentives may be possible and you may want to incentivise your staff to achieve recovery. Having reviewed the new priorities of the business, can incentives and bonuses be set to achieve them?

A third party or HR Consultant will be able to assist, advise and facilitate a plan to improve morale following redundancies that may pay for itself in the speed of business recovery.