Communicating Company Decision

You call that good for the company???

Communicating the Company Decision

I don’t expect everyone to like and embrace every company decision at a personal level. If EVERYONE likes every company decision we make, then we probably don’t have enough diversity in the company. My goal is to give the information needed so that employees UNDERSTAND and RESPECT why the decision was made from a business perspective. My goal is for the employees to understand HOW we made the company decision. Employees may not like the decision personally, but the goal is to understand the decision from a business perspective. I think that most people can separate the two. I hope that we can create a culture where employees not only want to know the reasons but will ask questions when they don’t have all the information.

It’s your career

When you hear a company decision for the first time, try not to assume the worst.  More than likely, the company had reasons we were not made aware of.  Don’t Hate!  Find out the business logic behind the decision. It is YOUR career you are sabotaging with a less-than-committed or resentful effort/attitude, not your managers.

HR doesn’t always have the best reputation in a company. Although HR is usually the department that makes job offers and brings on new employees, in the end, HR usually picks up a reputation for the following:

• Don’t ask HR; they will say “no.”
• Implements evil process and makes it harder to get anything done
• Looks out for the company and not the employee

Company comes first

HR can and should be more than the above. It is my HR philosophy that the company comes first. Make no mistake, I am here for the company first. HR is here for the employees second. I also believe that when I look out for the company first, I look out for the employees. When the employees feel the company is looking out for their best interest and doing their best under the circumstances, they WILL take care of the company. Ping-Pong, Xbox, and Beer Fridays are NOT taking care of employees. Don’t get me wrong, we always have beer, and I love foosball. I don’t think about these items when considering taking care of the employee.

Give employees the instructions to be successful

We want to give the employees tools that will make them more productive and worth more to the company. We want to provide tools for success with ANY company. It has been my experience that the workforce has become stronger, and the company can give them more than the industry standard of a 2% raise. I want to be the company that helps launch careers because we explained how to be successful at the individual level as well as the team level. 

The number one way we take care of the employee is by providing transparency regarding company decisions and direction.  

Give the power to the employees

To me, thinking about the employee revolves around a few basic themes. One of the big themes is communication/information.  “Information is power, Marty, information is power.”

• Reinforce WHY the company is doing something versus just telling folks WHAT the company is going to do. The “WHY” is the business logic behind the reason. The “WHAT” usually translates to more work for the employee.
• Explaining decisions three different times, three different ways from 3 different sources because not everyone is in the room to hear the message and not everyone responds to the same type of message.
• Encourage a culture and mentality where employees feel empowered to ask questions and care about decisions made.

Executives digest company decisions

Every company makes decisions that affect the employees daily. To the executives of the company, the company decision might be painfully obvious because:

• Executives may have thought about the decision for months.
• The decision has been vetted, discussed, budgeted, forecasted, and pureed.
• Leadership usually has access to more information across many different departments, weighing the company’s or industry’s strengths, weaknesses, and positions.

That isn’t always the case for the majority of the workforce, which may:

• Lack of insight into the long-term strategy of the company
• Not have insight into what other departments are doing
• The workforce may not have the experience to understand “scaling” a company, a tough economy, or the strategy around an operating plan thinking 3, 6, or 18 months out.

Comparisons are not fair

More experienced minds needed reports, multiple departments, and weeks or months to decide. Can we expect someone with less exposure to the business or industry to understand the impact in a 10-minute stand-up meeting or an email announcement? Both are just a fraction of the time that leadership had to digest a company decision and, at the end of the day, not a fair expectation.

If the workforce doesn’t understand a company’s decision, they will either:

1. Not care
2. Resent the decision

Generate support for ideas

I am not sure which of the above is worse. Less experienced generations want to hear the “WHY” behind the “WHAT.” We all know what happens when an idea doesn’t have any support. We all know what happens when a mob rallies behind a bad idea. Lack of support hurts the company and the employee’s professional career. Want to see different generations get behind a single positive idea?  Check out a FlashMob.

You can zig or zag with every decision a company makes. The direction of your product, the clients you go after, or the health plan you choose can all go one way or another. 

We are all armchair quarterbacks

We all question the decisions the coaches of our favorite sports teams make. Which player did they pick or trade in the draft?  Why did they pick a specific play when it was 1st and goal, or who is up to bat when the bases are loaded? How many times have you wanted to ask (not accuse) the coach about the “WHY” behind the decision?

My goal is to explain not just WHAT company decisions have been made but WHY the company decisions were made. Even when an employee doesn’t get the reasoning, doesn’t want to get the reasoning, or wants to tell the rest of the company why they think the company decision sucks, HR needs to stand fast. HR should not give up. 

Build a community of trust

We try to consciously explain why we are going after one set of clients vs. another. Why did we make this health plan decision vs. another? Why did we choose a hardware vendor over another? We also try to reinforce the message many times, many ways, from different people and different angles. It may sound like overkill and a lot of work, but at the end of the day, I believe that it is worth it. The more people who “get it,” the better the group will be.

Remember the remote employees

If you think that the employees within the building may not be getting your message, think about the remote employees. They have even less contact, visibility, and perspective with the home office. This demographic needs extra attention and a different message. Make it a point and someone’s responsibility to keep this group connected. 

Don’t get me wrong; I know I miss many opportunities to communicate. There have been times when I thought I was over-communicating, and I have been told I didn’t communicate enough. When I thought I didn’t say enough, people said they understood. It is a work in progress, but if we can focus on the WHY and not just the WHAT, I think everyone’s job will be easier. Over-communicate your next company decision, and the company will be better off.

See you at the after party,
HRNasty

nasty: an unreal maneuver of incredible technique, something that is ridiculously good, tricky, and manipulative but with a result that can’t help but be admired, a phrase used to describe someone good at something. “He has a nasty forkball”.

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