Whether you are a small or large employer, it’s likely that the decisions you make will affect your employees, but how often do you factor in how your decisions, or the relative changes will affect them, the environment they work in, or their role within the business (either directly or indirectly)? In some cases, you may think the decision you are making doesn’t affect their role or position within the business, but their perception may be very different.
It is easy to get caught up and excited in the changes from an operational perspective and assume that everyone will be on board and just as excited as you are. However, there are many risks in not considering the impact on your employees, such as:
Pushback – lack of understanding in the end goal can result in people “pushing back” on the decision and questioning why the decision is being made.
Culture shift – if people aren’t communicated with effectively, there is a chance the culture will shift within the business, and once happy employees may become disengaged in their role.
Lack of buy in – where your people aren’t involved in the decision-making process, you may have a hard time gaining their buy-in and commitment to the change. If they don’t buy in, depending on the scale of the decision or change, then they won’t be committed to ensuring it is implemented successfully.
Miscommunication – it’s not only the communication itself that is important when trying to roll out any sort of decision, project, or change, but also the method of communication. It’s important to determine what they need to know, and what the best way to communicate is. E.g., if someone’s role is specifically affected, perhaps it’s better to deliver information in a more personal way.
Project failure – with all the above, enacting change can be really difficult and often the projects will fail as you don’t have a great enough buy in to ensure all the moving parts work together. A key moving part to any decision is your staff.
Having someone who has HR and employee relations experience being tasked with considering the impact on your employees when decisions are being made can save you a lot of headache and time.
Being proactive and having sound HR foundations and protocols to follow is key, and having a dedicated HR support can help you project manage, provide risk analysis and set up communication plans for every step of the way, to mitigate the risk of projects or change being ineffective or unsuccessful.
We’d love to be the HR voice at your boardroom table. Give Georgi a call to chat about how we can help on (08) 8110 6400.