WASHINGTON, D.C., March 10, 2009 — Leaders can keep employees engaged and productive during layoffs by consistently and openly communicating with their workforce before, during and after the announcements are made, according to experts at Watson Wyatt, a leading global consulting firm. A Watson Wyatt survey conducted in February 2009 found that 52 percent of companies had already made layoffs, and another 13 percent expect to do so in the next 12 months.
“The pace of layoffs may be slowing from the staggering highs of the last few months, but until the worst of this economic crisis is behind us, there will certainly be more to come,” said Kathryn Yates, global director of communication consulting at Watson Wyatt. “While employers continue to make difficult cost-cutting decisions, they can still take important steps to keep remaining workers engaged and productive on the job.”
To help in this effort, experts at Watson Wyatt suggest critical communication elements for leaders to keep in mind before, during and after layoffs:
Before
Prepare leaders early. While leaders should initially deliver key messages about business conditions and actions, it’s important for frontline managers to personalize and reinforce them. A Watson Wyatt survey conducted in December 2008 found that nearly all messages related to the current environment are delivered centrally. Of those, 91 percent are delivered by leadership and only half (56 percent) by frontline managers.
