Tips and Answers to Your Questions
Human Resources

Employee Relations During Strategic Restructuring

Defining Employee Relations

Employee Relations (ER) has traditionally involved those areas that fall under the Human Resource department's "miscellaneous" category - the responsibilities involved go beyond the minimalist "hire, evaluate, and terminate" focus of many systems. These responsibilities include:

• Human resources planning
• Career development
• Manager-employee counseling
• Employee assistance
• Workplace disputes and disciplinary actions
• Labor relations
• Human resources policies and handbooks

Each of these areas can become tools and resources for an organization when properly handled. They can also be landmines that lead to upheaval, conflict and potential litigation.

Challenges of ER During Strategic Restructuring

In the fluid environment of a strategic restructuring process the management of employee relations becomes both more critical and more difficult. The stakes are raised during strategic restructuring because you have injected an element of change into the employment relationship. Employment relationships are, at their best, founded in trust. Trust can quickly be replaced by suspicion in times of great organizational change.

The process of strategic restructuring involves uncertainty, and a realignment of the structure and management of an organization. William Bridges has noted that those individuals who are most at home with the necessary activities of one developmental phase of an organization are most likely to experience the next stage as a loss. As a result, the reaction to even the potential of change is resistance.

The following five tips should help you negotiate the transition with your employees:

First: Do No Harm
As with doctors who take the Hippocratic oath, you must understand that the power to do harm is available to you. You could do harm by making decisions that would come as a complete shock to staff, taking managerial actions that appear thoughtless, or assuming that since staff will be resistant no matter what you do, you might as well just do something and move on. Think out the consequences of any decision and be prepared to deal with those consequences. The process is as important as the outcome.

Second: Be aware of the impact and not the intention
No one ever intends to have a decision go poorly, be misinterpreted or blow up. Rarely is there malice on the part of management, but often there is a lack of appreciation of the impact a decision might have. Make no assumption regarding the historical goodwill you might have "in the bank." Be prepared to deal with the free-floating anxiety that comes with organizational change. And keep in mind that in the light of organizational transition and an uncertain future, generosity could be seen as extravagance and efficiency as cold hearted apathy. Have the patience to deal with negative reactions.

Third: Be prepared
Know that the process will be difficult, and that you have to be ready to respond to a changing environment. Preparing the leaders within the restructuring organizations to lead the transition must be a high priority. Part of this preparation is the acknowledgement of resistance and the development of tools and processes to address and engage that resistance.

Fourth: Keep your focus forward
Keep the staff focused not on what they are leaving behind, but on what they are moving towards. There has to be a sense that the cost of the transition is worth it. You as the leader had better believe it, and it had better be true. Keep yourself, your staff, and your organization as a whole focused on the mission, and on the future.

Fifth: Communicate, Communicate, And Communicate
In the absence of information, information will be created for you. A crucial part of any employment transition is how it is communicated. It does not matter if no one will lose his or her job, that there will be more opportunities for career development, or even that benefits and compensation may improve, if no one knows that this is true. Creating a communication plan for the dissemination of facts is as important as the facts themselves.