With tales of High St doom and gloom around, knock on effect of the Euro crisis, continuing recession and credit crunch, what do you do if you find out your company like La Senza, Peacocks, Blacks clothing or Barratts is in trouble and goes into administration?
Firstly, you should speak to your staff as soon as possible and let them know what is going on. Be decent and sympathetic, these are worried people the same as you and they deserve to know whats going on, so they can start to secure themselves and brace themselves for the uncertainty ahead.
How do you calm worried staff and keep their morale up?
Imparting this sort of news is never easy and the short answer is, it is hard to calm staff down in these situations, however, in the case of La Senza, Blacks and last year with Oddbins, going into voluntary administration did not necessarily mean that all staff lost their jobs. Basically both of these were ‘managed or pre-packaged’ administrations i.e. the most profitable and sustainable parts of the business were sold on and actually continued on with that the staff who remained. (My local Oddbins and the same people who worked there before the old business went into administration is still going strong despite other branches closing down).
You should also endeavour to find out from the administrators as soon as possible what kind of severence packages employees will get and when! You owe them that at least!
If the worst does come to the worst, how do you manage the inevitable downsizing that will occur?
Consult, communicate, consult, communicate. If you have to let staff go and make them redundant the normal consultation process has to be adhered to.
I will talk about consultation and redundancy in subsequent posts so keep a look out, in the meantime, do not hesitate to contact the team here at NobleHR, who will be more than happy to help!
Olga
