Life as a manager would be fantastic if it only ever involved nice things such as giving out pay rises and breaking other pieces of good news like promotions and parties.
However, there are also sure to be times when it comes down to you to give out some bad news. In this case, you will need to be careful about doing it so that you can do it in the right way.
Don’t Delay it Too Long
Before you even get started you might find that it is extremely tempting to put off the announcement for a while. After all, none of us likes to give out bad news like this. Beware of the dangers of taking too long, though. One possible issue with putting it off for a long time is that information could leak out to the staff from other sources or else they might start to work out that something is afoot for some other reason. In addition, if the employees will need to make some sort of decisions based on your news then the quicker you tell them the better. There are legally stipulated consultation periods for issues such early retirement offers. Even if you don’t need to worry about legal issues, you will want to give your team as much time as possible to think over the information and make any decisions they need to make.
Take Them Out of the Office
The first thing to consider when arranging how to break some bad news is where to do it. Breaking something nasty to the staff is a situation that has to be thought out very carefully. For example, doing this in your normal place of work isn’t always a great idea. This is why many so many companies decide to take their staff away to one of the country hotels near Chester to break bad news. As well avoiding interruptions, this is a way of making sure that everyone who is invited fits into large meeting room with all of the facilities you could require. It also means that you are on completely neutral ground, which could help everyone to feel more relaxed and ready to talk.
Give Positive News Too
No matter where you choose to hold this crucial meeting what you don’t want to do is bombard everyone with one piece of bad news after another. This can have a crushing effect on many people even if they are all sitting comfortably in any of the best conference venues near Chester. Instead, you will want to give them some good news to balance out the bad stuff. This can often be a real challenge, especially if you are feeling bad about the tough news you have to pass on. Because of this, you should spend some time before the meeting thinking about how you are going to include some positive points in your presentation. This can help everyone to take the more difficult news more easily and it might also help you to feel better about delivering it.
Be Completely Honest
The previous point shouldn’t mean that you consider lying to the staff about what is happening. Telling them that everything is fine when it isn’t is a tactic that will come back to haunt you later on. Instead, you need to be completely honest with them and give them the full picture. This might cause some difficult moments for you at the start but it will make the situation far easier to deal with in the long run. Of course, you will want to show the reasons why things have gotten so bad. If you have lost clients or your cost base has increased substantially then these are very strong reasons that no one can sensibly try to deny. Let them see the honest reasons why the company has to give them bad news just now.
Answer Questions
Even if you include all of the relevant information in your presentation, people are still likely to have questions that they want to ask you. Part of this could come down to them not fully picking up everything you say. This is normal when someone has to process a lot of new information, so don’t lose your patience with them. The news you give your staff could also represent some very serious information that they need to be absolutely clear on. Make sure that you leave plenty of time to go over any questions in a relaxed way and then give them extra time to come back to you after the meeting with any additional questions. It may also be worth setting up a follow up meeting which everyone attends so that everything is as transparent as possible.
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