Aug
2010
The ears and the conscience
My clients and colleagues know that I can get quite passionate about what we do…
Last week’s data from the CIPD’s quarterly survey sparked a not untypical response from me. The survey revealed that 32% of organisations are expecting to make redundancies this year. Now that’s a big number (although perhaps not as big as we might have expected?)…
Nonetheless, that equates to 1 in 3 organisations laying people off. This year.
Do we have confidence that all of those organisations know how to handle redundancies well?
Will they treat their employees with respect? Will they be open and honest where possible?
Will they engage Unions and employee forums in a constructive way?
I’m afraid we still see too many examples where the answers to these questions is still no. Communications practitioners can play a major role in changing this.
One client recently described it as being both the “ears and the conscience of the organisation”. I love that sentiment. And our experience here at H&K tells us that we communicators can play a positive role.
We can ensure that people going through the hellish period of a consultation process are treated humanely. We can partner positively with our colleagues from across the organisation like HR and Legal to balance the business needs with those of employees. We can ensure leaders don’t hide behind oblique management-speak.
That should be enough to get us out of bed in the morning. That should be enough to make us passionate. In fact, that should be enough to want us to give our very, very best.
