Adam Verity: Director for corporate relations, Erickson College
Fears around personnel changes occur when there’s a lack of understanding, which often causes people to assume the worst: who’s next? What will happen to me? Is my company going under? If not properly addressed, these fears can lead to gossip and speculation, which can quickly turn corporate culture toxic and unproductive.
If my experience in corporate coaching has taught me anything, it’s that proactive communication is ultimately the best way to approach change management. Being clear and transparent from the start ensures your team fully understands what’s happening, why it’s happening and what will happen next.
As a leader, you’ll need to play an important role in facilitating and guiding these conversations away from gossip, fuelled by uncertainty and fear, into ones about core values and growth. You’ll need to create an environment where your team members feel empowered and appreciated. In doing so, you’ll create a foundation that can handle change with minimal repercussions.
Make sure to open up the lines of communication and offer opportunities for your team to voice their concerns. Having an in-house coach is one way to do this. It gives employees a chance to be heard without the discomfort that might come from directly communicating their fears to leadership. The coach can then pass on these concerns anonymously so that an effective internal communications strategy can be implemented.
Regularly communicating clearly and transparently will create an environment that can handle any change. This also ensures that you’re taking a proactive rather than a reactive approach. Personnel changes don’t need to signify a negative change. Take it as an opportunity to strengthen your team, realign your values and set the tone for a healthy corporate culture.
Darrell Kopke: co-founder and principal, Institute B
Think of your organization’s culture as the sum of all the conversations that happen in the office and with all of its stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders. When it becomes necessary to make personnel changes, it is inevitable that rumours and whispers will prevail as the dominant conversation pattern in your culture. This is normal human behaviour. In our practice we call these conversations “background” or “water cooler” conversations.
Besides expressing emotional reactions to the changes, your team will undoubtedly be asking themselves, “What does this mean for me?” The uncertainty and stress that go along with downsizing may cause productivity decreases that, unless addressed, will disrupt the pathway to results you were hoping to achieve with the changes.
So what is a leader to do?
The first thing to do is to listen. I mean, really listen. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Listen for all the conversations that are happening in the background and are potentially affecting your organization’s ability to deliver results. Yes, that means the emotions, frustrations, fears, concerns, demands and gushy feelings. Be a fellow human being.
Second, paint a picture of your vision of the organization’s incredible future. In change management, context is crucial. Clearly define the results for which you seek your team’s alignment. Better yet, ask your team for ideas to achieve these results.
Lastly, without their asking, provide examples of how the remaining team members can benefit from the necessitated moves. By consistently outlining what it means for your team, they will rally around the results. Stay tuned to the conversations that are happening in the background. If your team has experienced being heard, you will undoubtedly benefit from your organization’s culture shift.
James McQueen: Partner, daily operations, Rumble
Answer: communication.
As a company moves through different stages of growth and the needs of the business change, personnel changes are inevitable. Given that, building a strong culture of engaged employees and retaining talent are two of the most important success factors in an early-stage venture such as ours. It’s imperative that management not overlook the importance of handling staffing changes professionally to avoid creating a toxic work environment.
By maintaining a healthy company culture at Rumble, we’re able to keep staff motivated and excited about what’s on the horizon. Our team works hard to keep employees informed and plugged in through regular communication. In our scenario with employees in different geographies, we hold two weekly check-in meetings and longer sessions monthly and quarterly to improve connectivity across the team. These check-ins allow our management team to better understand who’s doing what, how each employee is contributing to the overall growth of the business and whether we have staffing issues. The goal is that with strong communication our employees always know where they stand and how their role contributes to the greater vision, and in the event they are not hitting the mark, they have the opportunity to course-correct.
By creating an environment with open lines of communication, we’re minimizing the chance that staffing changes will come as a surprise. On the positive, our employees can feel confident and stable in their roles.
