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Several years ago I had the opportunity to research the actions of managers in times of organizational change. I was looking for things first line or middle managers could do to make a difference in employee morale and productivity during uncertain times.

I looked into the effects of major change at nearly two dozen companies in nine industries - changes like mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, and Employee Stock Ownership Plan introductions.

There were a couple of surprises from the research. Here's one: You can't predict how productive and happy employees will be during and after a change by how productive and happy they were before the change. A manager cannot rely on the fact that people will maintain their level of productivity and morale, even if it is high. When change happens, the manager must intervene to support success.

Effective managers do indeed intervene. The research showed that there were some fundamental actions managers could take that will increase employee morale and productivity during periods of change. The greater the effects of the change, the more necessary are the interventions of the manager.

The core message to managers seems to be this: Give employees a sense of security and a feeling of being respected, supported, and involved, and you will get their best efforts during, and following, change periods. This prescription would not be bad advice anytime. It becomes critical during times of organizational change.

There are seven things the research showed managers could do to increase morale and productivity when their employees are undergoing major organizational change:

1. Be fair. The manager should treat employees fairly and should be perceived as doing so. This is important in two ways. When downsizing occurs, remaining employees will judge the manager and the company by the way departing employees are handled. Every action becomes a message.

During this period, the manager must be seen to be fair. That means assigning work evenly, even when some staff are learning new skills or are wishing for more interesting assignments. It means visibly, and at every opportunity, providing information, attention, recognition, and rewards, and doing it in an even-handed manner.

These are things an effective manager does routinely, but it's important at this time that the staff knows your role and what you are doing. In the middle of change, with more work, more worry, more ambiguity, and often fewer resources, it's reassuring to staff members to see the efforts of the manager on their behalf.

2. Keep promises. It is important during this period to keep any promises that you make to avoid adding to the uncertainty employees face.

Managers are naturally cautious about making promises in a time when they may not be able to deliver on them. Two things make it hard to know what to say:

• Employees seeking answers and security can see even innocent remarks as a verbal commitment.
• A manager could be misinformed, or, as happens so often in turbulent times, not informed at all.

This concern leads some managers to make no promises at all, indeed to disengage from employees for fear of being asked to make commitments. This is dangerous too.

The only safe course is to be as authentic as you can be, to tell people that you will tell them what you can, that there will be a lot you won't know for a while.

3. Involve employees. Involve them in planning for the change, in creating the vision of the future, in planning the current work and in designing the evolving procedures.

Meet with them, individually, as often as possible, to review work, answer questions, or coach. This will provide the feelings of respect, support, and value that enable them to keep on despite the turmoil.

In one successful reengineering effort (there were a few), a company involved hundreds of employees in teams that designed the way a major change would be implemented in the various offices. Some of those involved knew they would be losing their jobs at the end.

The involvement enabled all employees, even those who would eventually be leaving, to find some control and have some choices in the change. Productivity and morale stayed surprisingly high, and the employer was able to keep key positions staffed as the change progressed.

4. Control anxiety. Anxiety or calmness is catching. The manager who deals well with his or her own fears about the future will not add to the natural fears of employees. Radiating security helps establish a climate where people can move on effectively.

It's clear that radiating security during a period when your own job may be in doubt, is difficult. Managers are responsible for seeing to other peoples' stability when there may be no one to see to the manager's.

One risky trap managers can fall into during periods of change is transparency - saying or implying that they do not agree with management's decisions, and are victims of orders from above. Transparency is always a bad posture for managers, since they are part of the management team, and it is even more critical during times of change that the members of the management team present a united face to the staff.

5. Balance the focus. A focus entirely on work at this critical period would deny the validity of the emotions and the value of their owners. Focusing only on the emotions would encourage employees to wallow in self-pity for longer than necessary. So the focus must be balanced--the work and the change, the long term and the short term.

One of the most important and difficult things managers must do is deal with the emotional reactions of employees to the change. If employees are in denial or shock, the manager may need to act to move them further through the process, knowing that the next step may be anger or bargaining, or both--interactions most managers would prefer to avoid. Yet if employees cannot express their feelings about the change, they may become frozen in an early stage of adapting, and may not move on effectively.

At the same time, the manager and the group owe the organization their best efforts to achieve organizational goals, even in trying times.

One technique managers have often found effective is to schedule a department meeting toward the end of each day. In that meeting, they can discuss what's going on, provide support for those who need it, do rumor control, and still keep the balance of the day available for production.

6. Communicate. A second surprise in the research was how uninterested people said they were in communication. The literature had suggested that communication would be a high priority, but those interviewed rarely mentioned it. There may be two reasons for this.

Our first thought is that in this research, employees are describing the end result they desire from the managers' actions. Communication is not an end, but a means. Employees appreciate it when it will help them feel secure, valued, respected and supported. They don't want communication for its own sake.

The second reason it may not have been mentioned separately is that the points above, when done well, contain a lot of communication.

Nevertheless, the value of communicating with employees frequently during changing times cannot be overstated.

7. Know you can't do it all. The final message to managers involves the large uncertainty factor. There is, despite the best intentions and the most thoughtful actions, a great deal in an organization and in a changing environment that a manager cannot control.

The actions of outsiders and senior management, the effects of the corporate culture, and the climate of the business and community environment - and much more - may all play a part in shaping the forces at work in the changing situation.

The manager can help employees clarify, interpret, and focus. At some point even the best manager must say "Let's wait and see."

© 2001, Consulting Today.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

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