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pook · 01-23-2007, 01:29 PM

Lately our smallish company has had to make some non-staff cutbacks and ask employees to do some extras so save money. Things are generally OK, but here's my problem: Each time the boss has needed to throw extra tasks on our backs he'll sit all of us down (about 30 employees) and say, Here's what we're doing, money's tight, any questions? No one answers, we shuffle off, and then the grumbling begins. No one really has the balls (including me) to visit his office later on to offer input, so the grumbling continues for a few weeks then, finally, fades away.

My point? This seems like the worst way to deliver not-so-good news. One thought I had was that the boss should first have one-on-one meetings with some of his long-time, key employees -- the most respected workers who aren't management, but can influence others. Sit them down face-to-face (no desk in between) and say, "Look, you're one of my best people and I need your help selling this. Here's what I want to do and why..."

It seems that if he were to do this with 4 or 5 of us (again, out of 30 or so) that this stuff would be easier to swallow.

In addition, one-on-one meetings in a conversational setting could allow people to feel better about questioning what's going to happen. If an employee asks a good question the manager could say, "That's a great question. Could you bring it up in the all-staff meeting, too?"

Thoughts?

01-23-2007, 01:29 PM	#1 (permalink)
pook Registered User	Question about managers delivering bad news Lately our smallish company has had to make some non-staff cutbacks and ask employees to do some extras so save money. Things are generally OK, but here's my problem: Each time the boss has needed to throw extra tasks on our backs he'll sit all of us down (about 30 employees) and say, Here's what we're doing, money's tight, any questions? No one answers, we shuffle off, and then the grumbling begins. No one really has the balls (including me) to visit his office later on to offer input, so the grumbling continues for a few weeks then, finally, fades away. My point? This seems like the worst way to deliver not-so-good news. One thought I had was that the boss should first have one-on-one meetings with some of his long-time, key employees -- the most respected workers who aren't management, but can influence others. Sit them down face-to-face (no desk in between) and say, "Look, you're one of my best people and I need your help selling this. Here's what I want to do and why..." It seems that if he were to do this with 4 or 5 of us (again, out of 30 or so) that this stuff would be easier to swallow. In addition, one-on-one meetings in a conversational setting could allow people to feel better about questioning what's going to happen. If an employee asks a good question the manager could say, "That's a great question. Could you bring it up in the all-staff meeting, too?" Thoughts?