Ethics

I have found myself in several conversations recently about job losses and how best to communicate them - hardly surprising eh?

Inevitably people say that you have to be "open and honest" and tick off all the reasons why being secretive or economic with the truth is a very bad idea.  Which I don't disagree with.

However, practice is somewhat different for most commuicators.

There are the stockmarket rules that govern timing and managers who don't want to give the impression that cuts are being made because the company is going broke (even though that's exactly why cuts are being made).

Then you have to contend in international companies with the uncertainty caused by different regulatory regimes governing job losses.  You mmight want to give people some idea of when thier employment will cease, but its pretty hard to predict it in Germany, Italy or France...

Finally, the awful truth can be that HR is in such disarray that they can't actually work out the figures or Finance are driving the timing so that the job losses have the best whole year effect on the balance sheet.

Under these circumstances openness can be foolhardy in the extreme and 'honesty' becomes a rather wooly, subjective concept.

But if IC doesn't keep true to some values where will it all end up?

I have found two things to be useful recently.

Firstly, getting in early in the conversation and setting out the options with pro's and con's clearly spelt out.  Painting a clear picture of the risks faced by the company has been really useful and it moves the conversation from wishy washy hand-wringing to a sensible management debate about how best to manage internal and external reputations.

Secondly, find a test of what's right.  My working code is "is this fair?"  - if you can't be completely candid or the bluntest interpretation of fact is too damaging at least you can ask if what you plan is fair to all concerned.

The idea is that trying to see the best interests of employees is the minimum that a communicator can do.

I wonder how other people approach the issue?

Liam