Question

West Coast Architects (WCA) has been operating for the last ten years now. No longer the new kid on the block, the organization has steadily become more professional during your time here.
Five years ago, the company had 50 employees and now has grown to 100 staff in Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto. You have been successful in your career as a people manager practicing what you learned in your BCIT OBRG 1105 class many years ago. You are managing an HR Department that is based out of Vancouver and has a mixture of recruiters, HR consultants, and payroll staff. You silently take stock of your situation and marvel at how lucky it has been to grow with a company that has really appreciated your contributions. That brass name plaque on your office door could use some polishing as its developing some patina!

question

COV19 has hit all of the offices. Your boss has asked you to prepare speaking points for Jane (the CEO) on how you will handle the announcement to layoff 50% of the workforce and how the change will affect them. Identify and apply the concepts of change management and leadership on what you would write for Jane to say to all staff about the layoffs

Answer 1

answer-

Layoff or Mass layoff is not a easy change for an organization. It is very stressful and bad news for Employees that they will lose their job. They will show resistance and say bad things about the company but it is duty of management that is CEO to convey the news in such a manner that impact of bad news is minimal and employees show less or no reistance and accept the change.

The key points i would give to Jane so that She can communicate the news of Layoff to Staff effectively are-

The first Thing, Jabe need to understand that this situation is not easy so hiding and manipulating facts from staff can be very bad. So Jane needs to be clear who is going to be layoff and be honest with the reasons for the layoff.

The second thing, Jane needs to do is Communication. Communication is the key to handle such bad situation. When such layoff happen then CEO can not hide behind cabin and send letters. Jane needs to be face to face infront of employees. "The key to conducting a compassionate layoff is to focus on the message," says Lindsay Witcher, Senior Director, Global Practice Strategy at the outplacement firm RiseSmart.

The Third thing Jane needs to do is Be honest with staff, answer thier questions and all issues that why company is laying off and why they are the ones need to layoff. The answering their questions would reduce their confusion.

for example- Staff who done physical work and travel here and there could not be able to work because of locked down due to COVID-19 so this is the reason etc.

The fourth thing Jane can do is that when situation is better and government announce that pandemic is no more then the company will be happy to hire them back again. This is like showing them some benefit and chance so that they can accept the news effectively.