Reorg

So You've Reorganized…Now What?

By Beth Banks Cohn, PhD

Have you reorganized your business? Many companies in this challenging economy have done this hoping it will help their bottom line. This can be very disconcerting for employees to say the least.

As an illustration of what it might feel like for employees, imagine that you ran a school and decided over the winter break, to change all the rooms around. Every class now meets in a different room and in some cases teachers are no long teaching certain subjects. Some classes have been combined, while others were eliminated. Imagine the chaos and confusion such a shuffling would cause.

Your employees are not school kids. But the workplace they have grown accustomed to — i.e., their expected tasks, the management hierarchy, their schedule, their teammates — may be different enough after the reorganization to cause some degree of concern and stress.

Here are some simple ways to alleviate such post-reorganization stress:

Make it make sense. When reorganizing, remember that it must make sense to all employees, not just those in the boardroom who might be privy to more information than the average employee. Take the time to think about what was done and why, and then share this thought process with your employees. They don’t have to agree with the “why”; you are just explaining the process you went through to get there. Sometimes just knowing there was thought behind a decision makes it more palatable.

Market the reorganization. Sell it to employees in an honest and truthful way. Get them on board with what you hope to accomplish in the short and long term. If downsizing was part of it, explain the critical role that plays. If you have made several changes in rapid succession, show how all the changes are related and how each plays a part in the long term health and well being of your company.

Involve all players. Engage your employees in transition planning. In a reorganization work may have been reassigned or shifted. This not only affects employees but potentially business partners as well (inside and outside of the company).

Verify their comprehension. Make sure everyone knows and understands exactly how this affects them (including business partners). Little things like changes in contact people are potential issues that can impact your business.

Although doing all these steps above can help alleviate post-reorganization stress realize that too much change will raise the stress level no matter what you do. There is just so much change an individual, and for that matter an organization, can bear. Doing a Change Map where you graphically represent all the changes you’ve made over the last 12 months can show you what you may be up against and help you plan to mitigate the impact. This saying is old, but still rings true in our volatile business environment: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

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