How are you Supporting your Team through Tough Redundancies?
Redundancies are common across the tech sector due to several reasons such as economic uncertainty, changing market conditions, company restructuring, or mergers and acquisitions. Recently, there have been several high-profile redundancies across the industry, including those at Google, Neta, Twitter, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Accenture.
This can be a difficult and stressful experience for both the affected employees and can have wider impacts on the remaining team members. As a leader, a key challenge is to support your team, both those impacted and those remaining, to navigate through the change and uncertainty, whilst maintaining business as usual.
Support for those exiting the organisation:
Organizations can support employees who are being made redundant in several ways to help them move on confidently to their next career move. The traditional support that is offered to exiting employees include offering career coaching or outplacement services, providing training or reskilling opportunities, offering financial support or severance packages, and providing emotional support.
Career coaching or outplacement services can help employees identify their skills and strengths, create effective CVs/resumes and cover letters, and navigate the job market. Training or reskilling opportunities can help employees gain new skills and qualifications that make them more competitive in the job market. Providing financial support or severance packages can help alleviate the financial burden of being made redundant and give employees time to search for a new job. Emotional support, such as counselling or employee assistance programs, can help employees deal with the stress and uncertainty of the redundancy process. If this is not already in place in your organisation, ask the question on what support is being provided for those exiting.
Support for those remaining in the organisation:
Leaders are looking for the remaining team to continue to work effectively, often doing more for less and needing the team members to adapt quickly to take on different responsibilities. This is a challenge for leaders who are ultimately aiming to deliver business as usual during this time of change. Research has shown that downsizing a workforce of 1% can lead to a 31% increase in turnover in the following year. Organisations can also see a 41% decline in job satisfaction, a 36% decline in organizational commitment, and a 20% decline in job performance1.
There are strategies that can support the whole team through this uncertain time:
Be transparent in all communications:
Everyone reacts differently to change and those remaining in the team will still feel the impact of the redundancies as uncertainty permeates the team. To support employees who are staying in the organization, it’s important to establish a resilient team culture with open communication and regular check-ins. By communicating effectively and transparently, all employees will appreciate knowing what is happening and the reasons behind the changes. Continuously keeping the whole team informed of how this will impact them; their workload and the general day to day running of the team. Ensure the team have a clear understanding of how these changes impact the company strategy and that they know what the future direction of the company and team. Be prepared to answer questions they have.
Consider addressing the impact on the remaining individuals’ careers:
The stress of those going through redundancies can have a ripple effect on those who remain in the company. As well as the worry of the changes in their own role, they may have concerns about their future at the company. Questions that we hear from individuals in relation to their career, when their team or company are going through redundancies are: “what about my career? Is my job safe? Do I have a future here? Should I look around at what else is available in the market?”
At the appropriate time, having career conversations with your remaining team members so that you assure them that they still have a future with the company. You can discuss development opportunities and mentoring which can help employees feel invested in their growth within the organization and stay motivated to achieve their goals. Providing clear pathways for advancement and recognition can also boost morale and confidence in their career path.
Supporting employee motivation and career development requires a holistic approach that addresses individual needs and goals, as well as team and organizational culture. By providing support and opportunities for growth, employees can feel confident and motivated to achieve their full potential within the organization.
Our programme – Your Next Move – is a career coaching programme designed to help individuals to get clarity on what is important to them and develop a clear career strategy that energises them. Our CHESS Method helps them to feel confident about making decisions about their future career by learning from their past choices and decisions. By understanding how they can use their strengths to make clear decisions on what they want in their career. They will have a clear vision of what is important to them, and the confidence to talk effectively about this to secure their next role – whether that is an internal or external role. We can help individuals to move on to where they need to be, where they can continue to develop their potential and their experience in – either in their current role or in a new role.
Click here to book a call to understand how we can support your team to focus on their career strategy so that they know what job satisfaction is to them and they are committed to the organisation they work with.
