Effective management and communication strategies is key when implementing any changes to a business
With the issue of Brexit still unsettled and a new Prime Minister about to be selected, it's fair to say that businesses are facing a period of economic and political uncertainty.
Many businesses are looking at restructures, mergers or redundancy programmes as a way of protecting themselves against financial difficulties.
It's common for such changes to have a negative impact on the staff who remain – and indeed, many staff whose roles are not affected by a restructure end up leaving.
Short-term financial gains from the restructure can be wiped out by the cost of recruiting and retraining replacements. While this is common, it's not inevitable, and the risk of it happening can be reduced through effective management and communication strategies.
Legal basics
It goes without saying that it's essential to get the legal basics right when implementing business changes.
From the intricacies of TUPE to individual redundancy consultation, making errors can seriously undermine the business' credibility.
If affected staff point out flaws in the process and the business has to backtrack, this will be widely known among staff and taken to indicate a lack of care and professionalism.
Conversely, handling the process fairly and efficiently, demonstrating consistency and care for the impact on individuals can have a positive impact on the staff who stay.
A lost opportunity
The legal aspects are only a small part of delivering change.
Many businesses don't communicate the purpose of a restructure effectively, leaving staff unclear about what the business is trying to achieve and what their part in it is.
In some cases, this may be because the senior management are concerned that providing detail will encourage staff to challenge the rationale and second-guess management decisions.
In other cases, concerns about commercial confidentiality – or issues around price-sensitive information – may constrain what staff can be told at an early stage.
But staff who are not given a clear narrative about the purpose of major changes are likely to feel less invested in the process of change and less receptive to any new ways of working which the business requires. The result is that an opportunity to change the business' culture and improve performance is lost.
Engage your staff
Any business transformation requires buy-in from staff to be successful – and, in our experience, the best way to achieve this is to ensure that staff are given as much information as possible, as early as they can (given commercial and legal constraints) about what the business is seeking to accomplish and their role in achieving that.
Further, licensing dissent is a good way to take control of it, address it, and get those individuals engaged in the process. Any change that is delivered from the ground up, rather than imposed from the top, is often more sustainable and successful in the long term.
