Communicating With Employees When the News Is Not Good

Last week I attended a dinner meeting of the Greater Valley Forge HR Association.  The speaker was Frank Roche from iFractal.com.

Frank’s topic was especially timely for stressed workforces and HR departments  – “How to Communicate with Employees When the News is Not Good”.  (We recommend you work with Frank if you are planning big changes in workforce administration.  Frank can be reached at frank.roche@ifractal.com.)

I’ll cover some of the valuable tips in segments over the next few weeks:

1.  Communicating is about effecting changes in behavior  – which can be done either well or badly with associated consequences.

2.  Always tell the truth to employees – do not try to spin anything.

3.  People hate surprises more than they hate change.

4.  Sequence how important information is introduced: Talk about it, email it and provide tactile visual material. 

5.  People learn in different ways so appeal to the visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners in your workforce.