Does it seem as though everyone is scared these days? Employers, especially, have their plates full!
When employees are anxious and uneasy, business leaders should take extra efforts to communicate openly. I’ve found that when employers fail to keep those lines of communication open, invariably, employees have a tendency to fill in their own blanks, which may or may not be with accurate information. People then start jumping to conclusions and making assumptions.
Instead, employers may want to consider these ‘tried and true’ communication measures when communicating with employees during both bad and good times:
- Share as much information as possible, and as often as possible.
- Evaluate the best method for communicating. For instance, when we need to deliver ‘bad’ news, or we don’t want to face the choir—so to speak—we may want to hide behind e-mail, rather than share the information in person. That is usually not the best method, however, for communicating such news.
- Remember that information shared online, such as referenced above, can end up being forwarded to unintended audiences, such as former employees or the news media.
- Avoid conducting business behind closed doors whenever possible. When employees see their managers’ doors closed a lot, especially during tough times, their wheels start turning. As mentioned, people have a tendency to jump to wrong assumptions and conclusions, and rumors can spread.
- Anticipate and be aware of what many employees might be thinking or feeling during these tough times. Put yourself in their shoes and figure out the best methods for communicating, which ordinarily depend on the circumstances, as mentioned in number two above.
- Prepare an outline of what you’re going to say ahead of time, if you are going to speak to a group of employees. This way, too, you will have a record of what was communicated.
- Open up the floor for questions. You can think about how you’re going to invite questions. For instance, rather than saying something such as, “Do you have any questions?”, instead, say, “What questions do you have?” Although there is a subtle difference, the latter style is a more open and inviting way to ask for questions. If you don’t know an answer to a question, you can always respond, “I don’t know, but I will try and find out and get back to you.”
Here is a quick story that helps illustrate how important it is to keep open those lines of communication.
I knew of an employer whose employee had contracted a potentially contagious health condition. Obviously, this was a delicate situation, as this employer had obligations to his staff, as well as to the employee and her privacy.
After learning of the situation, I encouraged the employer to avoid communicating information that needed to be shared with the staff via e-mail, for the reasons stated above. I explained why it would be much better to communicate this information in person. Unfortunately, the employer chose to handle this process through e-mail, and the employee recipients did not handle the news very well. They over-reacted, and the employer was then faced with ‘damage control’ issues. If this matter had been otherwise handled in person, the employer would have had opportunities to answer questions, and reassure and calm down the employees.
For more information about this topic, I recommend two excellent articles, published online at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Web site and written by Rebecca R. Hastings, SPHR:
- Effective Communication Impacts Employee Advocacy, published on March 12, 2009. In this article, Hastings writes, “According to ORC, 44 percent of the 815 employees surveyed in early to mid-February 2009 said their company has taken some form of action in response to the current economic situation, such as downsizing or other types of cutbacks, in the past six months. Almost half of respondents gave their employers high marks for the way in which they communicated the organizational actions taken (49 percent evaluated extremely/very well on actions taken).”
- Report: Loyalty is Built on Communication, Not Compensation, published on April 1, 2008. In this article, Hastings states the following, “Companies with the most effective communication programs had a 47 percent higher total return to shareholders from 2002 to 2006, compared with companies that communicate least effectively, according to the 2007/2008 Communication ROI Study by Watson Wyatt, a global consulting firm.”