• 2.1: Talent Management
• 2.2: Learning & Development
• 2.3: Interim Services
• 2.4: Business Consultancy

How can I deal sensitively with redundancies? Following a reorganisation, I have to make two of my staff redundant. We are a close team – how should I approach this? What factors should I be considering?

Answer: be fair

Assuming you have an up-to-date and compliant redundancy policy, before you do anything else, familiarise yourself with it! Apart from not falling foul of the law or your own procedures it’s important that staff at risk of redundancy have a clear idea of how you are going to handle it.

Communication and consultation are key to a successful outcome

Consult the team as early as possible regarding your plans and their impact. Consider and listen to suggestions on ways of avoiding redundancies. Talk to them on a team and an individual basis and make yourself available to deal with any questions.

For those on the receiving end of communication, there are often periods when nothing seems to be happening. Better to have regular update meetings, even if it’s to say there’s no news to report, than let the grapevine fill the void for you with all the associated negative impact on morale and productivity.

 As important as compliance is ensuring your staff feel fairly treated, whether they are selected for redundancy or survive the cuts. This latter group is strangely often neglected, given that they are the ones upon whom you will be relying for ensuring it’s business as usual as far as the customer is concerned. So it’s really important to give attention to the survivors upon whose morale, motivation and productivity you will be even more dependent.

Offer career coaching to help the redundant staff members prepare for and focus positively on their future, and give them a good send-off. If you’re seen to handle a difficult situation fairly it can actually have a positive impact .

Don’t forget your staff are ambassadors for you and ex-employees are arguably at least as important to your external reputation.

Greg Brown is a Senior HR & Executive Coaching Associate with over 30 years' successful experience in local authorities, the NHS and Social Housing and at senior levels operating as Director, Chief Executive and Board member.