Refreshing your employees’ morale in the wake of restructuring
Restructuring and layoffs are difficult yet common parts of the corporate experience. With more companies than ever going through these processes amid COVID-19 and its related economic damage, it’s worth carefully considering how employee morale is affected by company changes amid restructuring.
A serious threat to employee morale
With 69% of companies restructuring in some way since March 2020, it’s essential for leaders to consider how those changes affect their teams.[1]
Experiencing massive changes at work can be difficult for employees. Feelings may range from apprehension about more layoffs to guilt about remaining while others have lost work. Culture clashes can arise when teams are reorganized or combined.
As companies begin rehiring, there are still more issues to consider — for instance, how will longtime workers mesh with their new colleagues? Teams that were once concentrated at one location may now include remote contributors. Have those people been given enough chances to bond?
People today are working in a different environment than existed two years ago, and it may change further in the months ahead. Salvaging employee morale in these cases isn’t impossible, but it demands attention — uncertainty and concern won’t go away on their own.
A problem best addressed directly
Failing to address post-layoff uncertainties can turn them into an elephant in the room. Potentially stressed and struggling employees need strong, reassuring leadership.
The HR department can prove itself in the wake of a reorganization or series of layoffs, investing in efforts to build confidence and comfort among all employees.
What does that entail? One of the most essential things to do is to listen. Workers who have made it through the wave of reorganization tend to have valuable insights about the direction of the company and their own role in it. HR can extend an ear to these employees through formalized surveys or more casual methods like lunchtime sessions.
As for the specific actions leaders and HR staff can take to help employees, the Society for Human Resource Management suggests that companies:[2]
- Be clear and truthful, demonstrating the fairness of the layoff and reorganization process — it’s better to communicate too much than too little
- Create a healing environment rather than using harsh top-down management, giving people room to grieve and vent their feelings
Taking a careful and considerate approach to all employees after a layoff is critical, because companies that downsize may find themselves losing even those employees they’d hope to retain. SHRM cited research that found companies that laid off employees suffered 2.6% higher voluntary turnover than the industry average.
Ways to assist employees
There are a few concrete actions leaders can take after restructuring to make sure the reimagined company they’re building is going to be a comfortable place to work. These include, but aren’t limited to:
- Focus on company culture and purpose: Being clear about the company’s mission and values is a way to change the script. Rather than being the survivors of a wave of layoffs, employees are the ones leading the way forward. Managers should give this messaging clearly, in person: Workers with highly visible managers are 70% less likely to suffer post-layoff productivity drops.[3]
- Institute fitness, meditation and other wellness programs: Offering workers positive ways to increase their health, fitness and peace of mind can be powerful. These programs give employees time to bond with remaining colleagues, as well as helping them feel good from day to day, and they show that the company cares about its people.
- Adjust insurance and benefits to safeguard mental health: Stress, guilt, uncertainty: These are the kinds of thoughts that come up during layoffs, and they can fester and harm workers for months. It’s a great practice to give employees a way to address their mental wellness through supplemental care programs.
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[1] https://www.predictiveindex.com/ceo-benchmarking-report-2021/
[3] https://hbr.org/2020/05/how-to-support-your-remaining-employees-after-a-layoff