Do You Have the Right Team in Place for a Recession Turnaround?

Economists are predicting the recession is starting to make a turnaround. This is good news for companies that suffered in the last 12 to 18 months and others who made significant cuts to ride out the rough times. Now that things are starting to get better, some of these businesses are taking a closer look to be sure the team in place is the right one to take the company forward.

Top management is key.

During slow times, companies sometimes hire “turnaround” managers, who are experts at developing new products lines or reformulating strategies to take advantage of what opportunities exist. While these managers are key to short term survival, they might not be the most appropriate people to have on board for a long haul. A turnaround specialist, by definition, helps you navigate tough times. Many such managers only expect to be at a company a short time; they come in, analyze the situation and develop an action plan, then move on to the next challenge. If you decide to hire for a key management positions, keep in mind that you now need people who can operate under your new business model and focus on growth.

The management team you keep in place must develop a new mindset. During the last year or more, you were probably focused on streamlining cost, managing for a shrinking marketplace and operating with a skeleton staff. Your managers had to say “no” a great deal, to employee requests, to vendors and suppliers, and to their bosses who continually asked for more for less. I’m not suggesting your managers now go out and start spending with wild abandon. Focus on smart spending for programs, such as training or new technology skills, that were postponed due to budget constraints.

Now is the time to manage out of opportunity. How can you motivate the team to take advantage of a stronger economy? Who on the team showed their potential during the tough times and now should be rewarded? Where is the team lacking? Smart companies use a downturn to analyze their next steps and determine what needs to be in place to move ahead once conditions improve. They look at the team in place and determine strategic hires that will help keep things moving forward.

If you cut back on your marketing budget during the recession, don’t assume your companies are still out there waiting. If you have been out of sight, perhaps now you are out of mind. Depending on what strategy you took, you may have to hire based on your current market share. If you cut back communication, now you need an aggressive market chief to get you back into the game.

Don’t forget employees.

Your management team is in place and you have a strategy for rebuilding or enhancing your customer base. Who is going to implement the plan? Your employees. Too many companies downsize and forget what I call the survivors—those employees still onboard after the cuts. Some companies falsely assume these people are thankful to still have a job. How can you make employees feel like part of your turnaround? Share sales figures and give them the realistic picture, good or bad. Share budget information. It’s likely you asked everyone for input on how to cut the budget not so many months ago. Now, give employees a say on where added funds could be allocated.

As business starts to grow again, celebrate large and small victories to keep people motivated.

A company learns a lot of what it is made of during a recession. How did your company overcome mistakes, reposition it’s strategies or learn to do more with less? What would you do differently under the same circumstances? Take those lessons and put a team in place that is motivated and equipped to position your company for growth.

Workplace Planning for Health-Related Emergencies

Company planning for disasters or health emergencies remains a hot topic in the news and in organizational conference rooms. Disaster planning is critical for all companies large and small, and like an insurance policy, it should be in place before an emergency arises. Proactive disaster planning is key for organizational survival in a crisis.

Here are a few points that companies should keep in mind when considering disaster planning, specifically for an epidemic or health emergency:

• Create a comprehensive and detailed disaster plan with specific instructions on what each person in the organization should be doing, how communication will be handled and how business will continue in the event of a disaster.

• Ensure that your disaster plan is compliant with any local, state and federal regulations and that your plan is following the guidelines that are provided by local, state and federal authorities. Agencies such as the CDC and FEMA have a very comprehensive set of guidelines that they publish for companies to follow in the event of an emergency or disaster.

• Make sure your company communicates with your employees that your organization has a disaster plan, which includes the actions to take during a natural disaster and during an epidemic.

• Encourage your employees to inform their family members of this plan.

• Provide training to all supervisors and managers in the company on their responsibilities in this plan.

• Ensure that managers are making note of unusually high health-related absences so that reports can be made to upper management and health authorities as necessary.

• Train supervisors and managers to be observant and sensitive to the morale of their employees when a communicable disease is forecasted and to report any of these concerns to the organization’s Human Resources Department.

• Ensure that every aspect of your disaster plan is communicated completely and comprehensively to all members of the organization.

At every stage of disaster and epidemic preparedness, it is critical that calm be maintained and that employees are reassured that their management has a solid plan that they are following to ensure the safety and well-being of both the individual and the organization.

Following these simple rules and using common sense can help your staff and your company through a crisis.

In the workplace, "Be Prepared" is not just a motto, it is an imperative.

Rumors: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Sharing rumors or gossip is a natural inclination of human beings. It is considered being social by taking a strong interest in other's lives. In earlier civilizations, gossip was a way to achieve higher status as it indicated that you were "in the know" about your community or tribe.

A survey by the American Society for Training and Development showed that 21% of workers admitted that they frequently gossip. 64% admitted to occasional gossiping. Some office gossip is for personal gain, which can put the organization in a dangerous position as well as put the person passing along the rumor in jeopardy with their career advancement.

Tune in to "At Work with Emory Mulling" at 3pm ET today on GPB.org. We will be discussing office rumors, what they mean, how to manage them, and we'll be interested to hear what our listeners have to say about workplace rumors. 1-800-RADIOGA is the number if you would like to call and join the gossip about the rumor mill.

Attention Managers: Delivering Bad News with Grace and Effectiveness

How many times have you swept a problem under the carpet, only to have it come back much worse? Maybe you thought the problem would go away, or maybe you were too uncomfortable to confront it head on. Delivering bad news is one of the toughest jobs managers face. So, more often than not, they avoid the issue rather than facing it with a co-worker or subordinate.

Why are people so afraid of delivering bad news?

• It makes you look bad
• You don’t want to be unpopular or thought of as a dictator
• You think that the confrontation will be worse than it is
• The process itself is frightening
• You don’t know how to handle conflict effectively

The reasons managers avoid negative subjects are varied, but one thing’s for sure, it’s never pleasant. Most people have worked with extremes. One type is always negative and is always quick to point out other’s mistakes. At the opposite end of the scale is the manager who avoids conflict at all costs.

For both types, the problems don’t go away, but how managers handle them can make it worse. The goal is to find a happy medium between the extremes. You have faced many of the following scenarios; did you know how to handle them?

Balance emotions when delivering bad news.

You want to show concern and confidence in the employee, but you can’t allow your emotions to get the best of you. If you are disciplining an employee but you don’t have the confidence that he can fix the problem., the employee is not right for the job. If the employee gets emotional, allow him to express himself, but don’t let the worker’s emotions deflect you off course.

Don’t attack.

When you have to discipline a subordinate, don’t attack the person, address the behavior. If you make it a personal issue, you immediately put your coworker on the defensive. He or she is more likely to fight back. Talk about the behavior that went wrong, but not who caused it. For example, say that incorrect paperwork caused a big customer’s delivery to be one week late, not that he personally messed up the job. Then focus on how to do it next time.

Don’t “garbage bag”.

Some managers allow a subordinate to mess up a few times without saying anything, then they explode with a list of offenses a mile long. It’s better to address each incident as it happens or let it go. If it’s important enough to bring up later, it’s important enough to talk about when it happens. If you don’t think it’s worth mentioning now, you’ve lost your chance to bring it up later.

Be clear, but not combative.

Don’t dance around the problem. When you discipline a subordinate, both of you should walk away with a clear understanding of the issue and an action plan for a solution. Some managers try to discipline, but in the end, gloss over the real problem. Your co-worker goes away without knowing what’s wrong, and worse yet, not knowing how to fix it.

Support the company line.

Sometimes managers have to bring bad news to their team from the company level—for example, to say that the big budget cuts are in the works that will impact the team’s projects. Give the party line and don’t editorialize. State the facts, but don’t criticize the decision or the people who made it. You need to show leadership, especially during the bad times. And don’t try to cover up the news or paint the situation in a positive light. The rumor mill will go wild, and before you know it, panic will set in.

Don’t place blame when things are out of your control.

If your team loses a customer because the client cut a budget, there may have been nothing you could have done to see it coming or to avoid it. You need to deliver the news while making it clear that the team’s work had no impact on the decision. And again, don’t interject your opinion or second-guess the client’s action --Remember the client may come back one day and you don’t want any hard feelings.

Maintain dignity.

If you have to deliver the ultimate bad news and terminate an employee, do it in such a way to maintain the dignity of both the employee and the company. In most cases, there was a progression of disciplinary action or one critical event that preceded the termination, so neither one of you are caught off guard.

Delivering bad news of any sort with grace and effectiveness is not an easy task. We are all human, and our emotions and personal attitudes can sometimes block our best intentions. In the workplace, it is in everyone's best interest for managers to move past their personal filters and remain as collected as possible when conveying challenging information to others. Bad news is hard to hear. Bad news delivered badly is much worse.