The recent labour market figures for Northern Ireland confirmed that 118 redundancies were notified in August 2013, taking the total number of proposed cut backs to 1,416 since the start of this year.
Having to let staff go is extremely difficult and can often cause high anxiety and low morale amongst employees.
Whilst the job market is becoming more buoyant and hopefully less redundancies will occur, change within the world of work is constant and this means that managers still need to know the proper way to communicate the news of a termination:
- Prepare: It may be easy to become emotional, so plan what you want to say during termination meetings and the key points you need to communicate to remaining employees. Remember, don’t assume personal responsibility.
- Underline what employees should do next. If you help employees to look towards the future, they may be more willing to understand the business decision. Organise meetings with HR staff and outplacement services.
- Expect negative reactions: Employees are going to go through a range of different emotions- disbelief, anger, despondency, dejection, even rage. Be ready to handle each of these emotions in the best possible way.
- Be supportive: Managers may believe they cannot be empathetic as they must remain professional, but redundancies are not an easy choice for any company, especially if the member of staff has been employed there for a number of years, so remain compassionate.
Outplacement services ensure that a company’s affected employees are offered a complete range of support services to enable them to make the correct decision regarding their future careers, whether it is seeking employment, perhaps starting their own business or even retirement.
If you want to ensure departing staff are best equipped for the change that lies ahead, contact us to discuss our outplacement services on: +44 (0) 28 9076 9900.