Staff After Downsizing

How to Manage Your Remaining Staff After Downsizing

Even those who despise the “spin” that is used in politics as a standard operating procedure will usually agree that this technique can be helpful in periods of economic turmoil. In these cases, it becomes important for management to make as many positive statements as possible during these periods.

In the business world, spin need not be disingenuous. There are often positive aspects to downsizing that are lost on the public, your customers, and, most importantly, your staff. Communicating these positives to your employees is absolutely critical to future success. Among many potential details that you can communicate, there is one primary essential that you should deliver to your staff: Make them understand how much you value these layoff survivors!

This action is more important than your overall spin on the economic situation. The individuals and the remaining teams must know that the company values their contributions and needs their continued high performance to navigate through this difficult period. Obviously, this is more than just a spin; it is a reminder of management’s commitment to its remaining staff.

How to Successfully Manage Employees Who Survive Downsizing

Downsizing is a traumatic action for both staff and company. The financial benefits to your company from eliminating, temporarily or permanently, employees can quickly be negated by the unhappiness and professional depression typically experienced by the remaining staff. Here are some tips to manage remaining employees successfully.

• Reinforce how valuable your remaining staff is to future success. Nothing, repeat nothing, is more important than communicating your confidence and trust in your remaining employees. They need to know they were not just lucky, but were selected to remain because of superior performance.
• Clearly communicate company plans to survive and prosper in the economic environment. Communication, always important, takes on greater criticality during downsizing actions. Advise your employees how your company plans to navigate the minefields of economic disaster. They will appreciate the information and help them rekindle a positive outlook on their jobs.
• Solicit ideas and suggestions from remaining staff. Encouraging creativity and free expression is a psychological positive. However, this tip can be much more than theoretical. Often, employees who work in the trenches have valuable outlooks and experiences that might generate workable ideas and suggestions for improved operations.
• Try to streamline all tasks. Since downsizing requires remaining staff to take on job functions of former employees, streamlining and simplifying duties allows remaining employees to perform extra work successfully.
• Understand the natural human reactions to change. If you’ve been in the business world for a while, you already understand that most employees react negatively to change – any change. Downsizing is one of the most dramatic and potentially damaging changes that can occur in a company. Be empathetic and supportive to all staff to minimize anxiety and maximize performance.

Downsizing is traumatic. Management should make every attempt to be positive, encouraging, and reinforcing to remaining staff to minimize (or even eliminate) the trauma. Employees should have the confidence to move forward, which, in turn, helps move the company forward even in an economic morass.