Keeping morale high and learning commonplace and desirable across your organization as it’s downsizing and letting employees go is no simple task—and can, of course, only happen after you’ve already proved that your L&D department is essential to your organization and its already stretched budget.
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(For more details on how to ensure your training department isn’t the first thing to go when your organization is downsizing, read this recent post.)
Although it might seem difficult at first, it is possible to continue developing your employees and programs as your company is downsizing. Below are some tips and best practices to follow.
Be Completely Transparent
As your company is downsizing, it’s imperative that you always remain transparent with your remaining employees about what’s happening. Let them know exactly why you’re downsizing and how you came to that conclusion, as well as how it will affect them.
Assure them that you still value their work and contributions. Coach your organization’s managers in how to keep their teams informed of everything that’s going on every step of the way and offer them support when they need it.
Overall, you don’t want employees to panic and quit in droves. And you don’t want to mar your reputation as being a good and fair employer to work for, as this will only hurt any future recruitment initiatives.
Furthermore, if you aren’t transparent with all your employees, those employees who remain with your company after it downsizes will have a hard time trusting you, your programs, and your intentions to train and develop them.
Create a Cohesive Vision and Plan
Work closely with executives and management teams across your organization to formulate a cohesive plan and vision for what your downsizing process will look like and what type of training or policies will be needed during this time of transition.
For instance, will you need to cross-train different teams with new skills after you eliminate part of a department? Will you need to offer better coaching programs to increase sales with a smaller staff?
Whatever your vision or plan is, make sure that it’s codeveloped with every team that’s affected by your organization’s downsizing, and be sure to keep your employees informed along the way.
Bottom line, if you want your employees to remain committed and engaged, don’t expect them to simply pick up extra work that they’re not accustomed to doing without even being asked, without knowing about it, or without guidance or some type of training.
Treat All Employees with Respect and Dignity
Expect your employees to be upset, confused, and stressed out about your organization’s downsizing; their jobs are their livelihoods, after all. Listen with empathy, and help them as much as you can by directing them to helpful resources.
At the bare minimum, treat them with respect and dignity by listening to their concerns and by having difficult meetings in private. And always provide them with ample notice about all changes and whether their positions will be eliminated. Otherwise, you should expect to receive backlash and bad ratings.
Look out for tomorrow’s post, which will cover even more tips and best practices for how you can continue developing your employees and programs as your company is downsizing.