How to have tough conversations with employees in the best way possible.

Commical – Episode title: How to have tough conversations with employees in the best way possible

Published 23/03/2021 on Chasing Albert website, spotify and apple podcasts.

Marie 00:00

If you've never made someone redundant, you're one of the lucky ones. It is not easy, and the implications are far-reaching, not just for the individual, but for your business and culture. With careful communication planning, breaking bad news can lower the risk of breaking anything or anyone else. Kris Grant is the CEO of ASPL Group. It's a management consulting, training and recruitment company that works very closely with government agencies and large enterprises, helping leaders navigate the redundancy process. It's something Kris has extensive experience in, and according to her, it never gets easier. Oprah, Steve Jobs, Andrew Denton and more, to me, these guys are masters of communication. The rest of us - well, mainly you, because I'm a pro - fumble our way through. Commical examines this funny little thing called communication that can either tear us down or make us soar. Join me. I'm an amateur comedian and a communication expert. Join me and listen, learn and laugh through the experiences of my very talented guests. All right, thank you so much, Kris, for joining me.

Guest 01:08

Thank you, Marie, for having me. I'm very excited to have a chat with you.

Marie 01:12

Likewise. Now, you have been in the people business for quite some time now, 15 years and counting.

Guest 01:19

Yeah, absolutely. People absolutely fascinate me, and I've learned a lot over the last 15 years.

Marie 01:29

I can imagine you've broken a lot of bad news to people over the last 15 years.

Guest 01:33

Yeah, look, unfortunately, at times I have. It never gets easier, never. No. Look, I think you kind of learn from what works and what doesn't work, and it really depends on the type of news you're breaking, to be honest. Obviously, having a redundancy is completely different to, for example, a performance issue or performance conversation. So I always think that if it's performance-based, generally, as long as you've allowed for the person to be successful, then you've got to absolutely stick to your guns and be a little bit courageous about the decisions you make. If it's a redundancy, obviously you really have to heighten your EQ and really hone in on your empathy skills. It's never easy.

Marie 02:23

Never easy, I can imagine. Let's talk about the redundancy conversation, because I think, given COVID, I'm sure that was a conversation many people had to have. But I also did question, and I'd love your opinion on this, whether it would be easier in some regards to have that conversation because the reason was so well known and accepted.

Guest 02:44

I don't think it's ever easier. And what's happened during the pandemic is that so many of your employees have got additional pressures, which means their reaction could be entirely different to pre-COVID.

Marie 02:59

Can you give me an example?

Guest 03:01

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of females are under additional pressure, especially working from home. You know, they're taking on the majority of the domestic duties, looking after fur babies, kids, homeschooling. And so I think it's even more challenging for them to either deliver the news or be the recipient of the news. People are under a lot more stress now than before.

Marie 03:29

So how do you prepare for a conversation like that with somebody?

Guest 03:34

I think that you really need to be factual about what you're discussing, and from a redundancy perspective, you need to make sure that they have a support person with them.

Marie 03:46

Always? Really? Okay. Is that a dead giveaway? If you say to somebody, 'I want to have a chat with you, bring a support person,' is that something that - for me - would make me feel quite anxious in and of itself?

Guest 03:57

Yes, it is a dead giveaway. But unfortunately, we have to do it by law. So, yeah.

Marie 04:06

I hope there's certain people not listening to this podcast.

Guest 04:12

Well, when you're talking about performance, you do. With redundancy, it's always obviously easier if you prepare, because so many people stumble over the whole conversation. You know, that whole fear of confrontation comes into play, so you have to be really clear with your comms, and you have to prepare. It's a lot like interviewing. A lot of people really struggle when they're talking about themselves, when they're talking about why the decisions were made. So, yeah, you're right in one respect, that obviously the pandemic has given a very specific reason, but you're still impacting people's lives.

Marie 04:46

True. Yeah, absolutely.

Guest 04:50

You know, I was actually talking to a customer just before this about how they've made some redundancies, and every single person had a different reaction. And even the people that were left behind go through a grieving process too. It's really quite interesting, the complexity of all of us.

Marie 05:09

Yes, so you just said that there's a wide range of emotional reactions that come into play. How do you prepare for those? I mean, you might have a script and the comms are ready to go, but you might not be ready for a meltdown or somebody getting quite aggressive. I mean, do those things happen from time to time?

Guest 05:27

Absolutely they happen. I think the truth here is not to take it personally. You've got heightened emotions, and if you're delivering that bad news, you cannot take it personally. You have to get resilient to the fact that every single person may react differently - exactly what you said. You've got that whole emotion. You can get aggressive behaviour. You can get complete meltdowns. I've always, in the past, used psychologists as well. So a lot of corporates offer EAP, employee assistance programs, which really help with the aftermath. So you've got to think through the whole process. It's not just delivering the news. You've got to think about privacy. You've got to think about your teams outside listening and going, 'What is going on?' You've then got to think about how you're going to exit them from the building - all these kinds of logistical challenges you have to be aware of.

Marie 06:22

How do you exit them from the building?

Guest 06:25

Well, you have to prepare for it, because you don't know what people's reactions could potentially be. Sometimes you say they can work through it, but a lot of people find it very hard to work through a redundancy. You can work with maybe four to six weeks, whatever your redundancy entitlement is and stuff, but it's very hard. You can't expect your employees to be engaged during that process. And you really have to think about, well, how can you support them after this, once the news has kind of resonated a little bit with them? Whether that's through interview techniques, whether it's through your own networks or within the organisational department, looking at opportunities.

Marie 07:04

Now, I can see that a lot of your clients are very large and quite corporate and very professional. In a business environment that's small to medium, I'm thinking of smaller clients that I've worked with that had to make redundancies, and I can almost guarantee they didn't go through this process. What are the implications of not breaking bad news properly, both for the individual and for the business?

Guest 07:28

I think obviously brand is key as well. If you're not delivering it correctly, the other challenge you'll have is that your current employees will disengage. That's probably the greatest challenge. You want your people to be as engaged as possible. You've got to appreciate that whatever culture you set, you could completely uproot that if you're not delivering news effectively. Communication is key to all of this, whether you're an SME or some of our government agencies that are making 250 redundancies. It's exactly the same on a larger scale. Obviously, the impact is potentially greater because the news travels through the grapevine very quickly. So honestly, it needs to be very well planned, and you need to think about how you're going to communicate at all times.

Marie 08:21

Now, timing is an interesting one because, as you mentioned, you've got to be aware and conscious of the wider team. So at what point do you inform the wider team of an individual's redundancy?

Guest 08:36

I would say almost immediately after, or you get your leadership team into a room and just support them. It really depends on the circumstances. A lot of the time, if it's your leadership team, they're probably aware of the challenges and the decisions that have to be made. And then you need to get consistent comms, because culture, as I said, is everything, and as soon as you deliver that news, people will be talking. So it's managing that.

Marie 08:59

So arranging the messaging and figuring out how you're going to position this and what it is you want to say, et cetera, really needs to be done before the redundancy is shared with the individual.

Guest 09:12

100%, because you don't have a minute to waste, really, from the moment that individual is told.

Marie 09:18

But how do you manage, for example, you mentioned you've got to set a meeting with the person and also tell them to bring along a support person. Now, at that moment, that's it. The word's out, right? They've told their mate who sits on the opposite desk, and everyone's around the water cooler thinking, 'Oh my God, she's probably going to be made redundant,' and, 'How dare they,' and et cetera. As a business though, even though that is circulating, are you holding on the comms? Are you waiting for that timeline to play out in that kind of linear fashion, or are you responding to the rumours?

Guest 09:54

No, it's all about timing. When you have to send one of those emails too - and sometimes you have to do that for performance as well - the individual or the employee would think it'd be one or the other, I imagine. And it's about setting a tone. I can remember one of my mentors years ago said to me, 'Kris, when you do this, you cannot do it on a Friday afternoon. You always have to do it on a Monday.' Why? His view was it's never great for culture. And I kind of agree now, and I never do it on a Friday, ever. Have a performance discussion because you want to finish on a positive note. People always overthink. We teach that ourselves. If you deliver any sort of news on a Friday afternoon, they will be overthinking the entire weekend.

Marie 10:44

Yeah, and also, you don't really have access to your team on a weekend, so they'd probably be ruminating and engaging in discussions, et cetera, in the absence of you.

Guest 10:54

Absolutely, that's exactly what would happen. So I think, as I said, preparation is key.

Marie 10:59

Is it bad to play a little bit of a mind game with people, right? So you would schedule a meeting and say, 'Bring a support person.' Everyone starts spreading rumours and thinks, 'Oh my God, this person is going to be made redundant.' But instead of making them redundant, you give them a random bonus and pay rise and celebrate how awesome they are, just so the team never cottons on. I've never thought of doing that.

Marie 11:25

Because that's probably... do you want to try it? You can go ahead and try it. Or I would, free of charge.

Guest 11:30

I would feel badly for the individual who is probably stressing for that period of time about what was actually going to be communicated in that meeting. It is bizarre. Sometimes I think our legislation sets us up, all of us, not just as leaders, to be less effective. As soon as you say you need to bring a support person, or you're welcome to bring a support person, bam, they are well aware of the fact that you're about to have a more serious conversation.

Marie 11:59

I've never offered anybody a support person. Very bad. I didn't even know it was a legal requirement. And my husband's a lawyer, so he's in big trouble.

Guest 12:07

You have to ask him, 'What's his legal requirement?' You know? I mean, there's ways you can get around it, but Fair Work would be really onto anyone that didn't offer that. Okay? Mental note. Yeah. And with a redundancy, you have to say, for example, if you've got other opportunities going within your business, they have the legal right to potentially go for those roles. So a lot of the time, especially in government, they'll make someone redundant rather than performance-manage them.

Marie 12:36

Easier, right? Is it easier to make someone redundant than to performance-manage?

Guest 12:41

No, I feel like it's a cop-out. Performance management is hard, right? It is hard. We all appreciate it's hard. But the sooner you have those conversations, the sooner you engage whether that person is going to be successful or not. You've got to give people the opportunity. Now, people are complex, right? A lot of what's come out of COVID is a lot of complexity with people's own personal issues that are coming into the workplace. So you have to work out where your line is here with all your employees from a performance perspective. You want to maximise performance, and you need to start coming up and self-reflect with what's going to work for you or for your organisation.

Marie 13:25

Yeah, if it's hard for one, imagine how hard it is for 200, 300, 400 people plus.

Guest 13:30

Yeah, it's really, really challenging. And as I said, people are more complex. I can remember years ago when there was a trend that whenever you performance-managed anyone, they would claim bullying, right? And in the public service it's a real challenge for leaders. And then there's that fear that comes in because it's quite a long process to performance-manage. So they have a fear that they're going to be looked upon as a leader that's not managing their staff effectively. So it's kind of a catch-22. So I always state too, you want to feel good about what you're doing at work. So a lot of people that make the decision, for example, 'I'm going to go down the redundancy path rather than performance-manage,' I feel like then they kind of have regrets about not actually doing what is probably the right thing to do.

Marie 14:15

What percentage of a workforce would typically need to be performance-managed?

Guest 14:20

Depending on the leader at the time, it could be anywhere - at least 20%, wow, maybe 30. Yeah. It's really interesting as you kind of mature into a leadership role. And as I said, we do a lot of teaching around leadership, more so on how do you break those patterns. So it's a neuroscience approach. But what's really interesting, when you're growing up and going through leadership training, or you're aspiring to be a leader, you kind of learn that you should look after your top 10 to 20% of high performers. And what happens in reality is you end up spending so much time on HR with your 10 to 20% of problem children. And the bit that's missing in all of this is the middle, where you've got a workforce that is kind of on the fence, right? And it's about how can you bring them on the journey rather than focusing on either end of the spectrum. Sometimes - and I say this even when I coach - it's okay if you're in a relationship where you cannot bring someone on the journey. You can't beat yourself up endlessly for something that is way outside your control. For example, if they're not performing. Whereas we do invest a lot of time in those non-performers as leaders, and you kind of have to be really self-disciplined about it and also not, as I said, be cautious about it. Don't spend hours overthinking the whole scenario. If you've allowed for someone to have an opportunity, if you've allowed for them to be successful, you can't make them be successful. We can't make them be more productive, or whatever the challenge might be. So I feel like that's a real learning as a leader.

Marie 16:07

Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, has this ever happened to you where you've had to break bad news that you didn't agree with, or make someone redundant and you didn't agree with it?

Guest 16:21

Yeah, I have. Okay. I absolutely disagreed with some of the decisions on who was being made redundant. But at the end of the day, you've got to weigh up how much you're going to fight and how much is potentially market conditions. Or in this particular case, it was just a selection of people, and you just have to work out, well, sometimes you just absolutely have to do the right thing by the organisation. That's it. You just can't get emotionally involved with it. And you may not agree, but ultimately you have to trust that. In that case, and a little bit differently because I probably make those decisions myself now, but in that case, I had to ultimately trust my leader.

Marie 17:03

Got you. How did you manage your own emotions through that process?

Guest 17:09

I wish I knew then what I know now, to be honest. In hindsight, I just tried not to be emotional about it. To be honest, it is emotional whenever you're delivering bad news, and you have to appreciate it's not about yourself. It's about the person you're delivering bad news to. So you have to have quite strong EQ to recognise that. As I said, in hindsight, the amount of overthinking I probably did years ago - I wish I knew then what I know now. It's an absolute waste club, really.

Marie 17:42

Is it counterproductive as well in the moment when you're showing those emotions to the person that you're delivering the news to?

Guest 17:49

Oh, absolutely, because you're just probably increasing the emotion for them. So removing your emotion, or - I mean, look, we all have to be authentic and have empathy - but you have to realise it's about them. A lot of leaders, it becomes about them, how they're feeling about the whole scenario, when it's not. It's just natural, because that's what they can obviously sense and feel, because it's about themselves. So you have to be very aware of your ego.

Marie 18:16

Wow. When you're breaking the news to the wider organisation, are they offered support? I mean, would it depend on the size?

Guest 18:24

Yeah, it would depend on the size too. But I think having those conversations - because, as I said, a lot of the time, the employees that are left behind have to go through a grieving process. They're their co-workers and their colleagues, and no one wants to see that.

Marie 18:43

Certainly from an internal comms perspective, when you're communicating with staff, one of the key things for them that we know is the first message they're looking for is, 'What about me? What's in this for me? What does this mean for me?' Do you see signs of anxiety, or people wondering whether, 'Am I next?' They are looking for that to validate the security of their own position.

Guest 19:09

100%, it is about them. So they will be nervous. Their anxiety will be heightened. And the challenge is that your delivery, or your optimising of your workforce, is going to go down. So it's all about timing. If you've made the decision and you're going ahead with it, it's about giving them as much confidence about the future as you possibly can, which is challenging in these times, to be honest.

Marie 19:35

Yeah, I can imagine. Honestly, I really feel for some of the leaders that have been working with sizable workforces that have had to make some tough decisions. It's not easy. And I'd imagine the impact of those decisions would last for a while.

Guest 19:52

Depending on how it's been done.

Marie 19:54

Yeah, delivered. Delivery. Delivery's everything.

Guest 19:58

Okay, the delivery's everything. So yes, 100%. There is a way to do it. And as I said, the more that you plan it and approach it in a way that makes you very, very honest and authentic, the more effective it will be. But you also have to appreciate that people will react completely differently to what you expect, and that's okay. You just have to be calm about the whole scenario.

Marie 20:27

But what happens in a scenario where somebody's walking out of a meeting and they're actually, quite literally, distressed? I mean, is the idea to try and break news away from the rest of the team and try to isolate them?

Guest 20:39

Okay, well, it's just about privacy. Yeah, also about privacy. Yeah. I think the challenging ones are when they get aggressive. Being emotional is also hard too. Any sort of emotion is going to be challenging for anyone. But some people, as I said, choose to stay on fully, to work out their notice period for four weeks or whatever it may be in their contract. And that's hard too, because they may get a delayed reaction, which may come back later, and they may be quite resentful of the whole thing.

Marie 21:10

I mean, is it even possible that it can turn into something that's positive? I mean, is it cake and balloons on their way out, or is that completely stupid?

Guest 21:20

I always kind of refer to performance discussions more so like having a breakup discussion, and you've got to try and make it as positive as possible. I always say people don't come to work generally to be unsuccessful. The challenge is that a lot of people don't know what success looks like for them, and they also really lack self-awareness. So I could be sitting here saying to you, 'I think that there's some challenges with your performance,' or, 'Are you okay, especially working from home, doing eight hours? Would it suit you more to be flexible?' Anything that you kind of bring up, most people automatically get quite defensive, right? That's their natural idea, even if you're trying to bring it up as soon as possible. So I think the sooner you bring it up, the better for everyone, including the individual. But again, if that person doesn't respond well to you giving them guidance, you can't force people to perform. So there's only so much, as a leader, that you can do. And I feel like a lot of leaders give themselves a really hard time about that.

Marie 22:29

When I've had to have performance management conversations, I have tried to lean on humour to help kind of diffuse...

Marie 22:36

How does that work? But honestly, for the most part, it actually hasn't worked too badly.

Marie 22:43

And by doing it, what I've tried to do is kind of just ease the conversation and say this is actually something that can happen, and if we're open, we can work past it. And I think it's been, for me, more of a tool to lower the... you know, people put their guard up and get really defensive. So I've tried to use humour to kind of get them to just drop the guard a little bit and put the defensiveness to the side. And I found, for me, that's worked better. My personality or my communication style is very direct, right? So the other alternative is I'm a direct person, for lack of a better swear word for now, and actually it doesn't work well for me at all. What's the ideal? What's the optimum communication style in a scenario where you're performance-managing someone?

Guest 23:35

I don't fancy there is an optimum, as you said, that works for you. You've got to find out what works for you individually. I'm very much about... I'm very passionate and very optimistic, so I always use the style of, 'You have to find your own passion, and you have to think about what success looks like for you.' So I'm trying to empower them, even if I'm delivering news they may not like. Because every single individual, as I said before - there are a few that don't - but most individuals want to be successful. They just don't know how to find that success. But if you try and script for someone else, for example, then it's going to come out like it's false. A lot of people do that, by the way. A lot of leaders stick to the script. That's why they start fumbling.

Marie 24:18

So literally, they write a script, word for word, on what they want to say, and read it?

Guest 24:25

It's like an interview. It's the same thing. And because it's not really their words or how they're delivering it, that's when it all starts to become... and stuff. That's scary stuff. It's really interesting. That's because they're so uncomfortable with the situation.

Marie 24:44

That's why a lot of people end up, or leaders go through, leadership coaching, right? Or emotional intelligence development, or whatever it is, to help overcome that. But I can also offer a comedy service if they'd prefer to use me.

Guest 24:58

I know, right?

Marie 25:00

You've mentioned EQ, you've mentioned calm, you've spoken a little bit about mindfulness, and I'm going to tell you, as stereotypical as this may sound, they're not typically skills that I would equate to somebody in finance, which is where you came from. Did you have all of these things before you moved over to people and training and consulting? Was it natural, or did you develop it? Tell me a bit about that.

Guest 25:29

I always had a natural aptitude for people. And doing a business degree, I went into my first grad role with BHP, which, may I say, I think there were about 5% females. I think there were only one or two female leaders at that time. And look, it was really, really great foundational skills from a finance perspective, but I wasn't in there for long. I moved straight into the operational side of every business. So as I said, I would encourage anyone to do it. And obviously my personality is not like the typical finance person, but I naturally had an attitude of, 'How am I going to lead this workforce?' And, you know, I was very young when I took my first C-level role. I've only said that to two young kids, and everyone goes, 'Oh, how did you do that?' I get asked that all the time, you know, with other leaders or even with some media. And I always say every decision I tried to make moving up, and even now, I always think about what's best for the business rather than what's best for me. And I feel like as a leader, if you start doing that yourself, self-reflecting, and you really think about that, it makes all this sort of breaking bad news more... it does make it easier if you take yourself out of sometimes the decision. Does that kind of make sense?

Marie 26:46

It does, yeah. And finally, does gender play a role? Is it easier for men to do that or for women to do that?

Guest 26:55

No, I don't think gender plays a part. I think across the board, it's hard. Obviously, a lot of the time, females have higher EQ, unless you think about your emotions - they could be emotional as well. Men sometimes really struggle with showing vulnerability, but then females do as well. It's pretty on par, unfortunately. I wish I could say it was one way or the other.

Marie 27:21

We want the facts exactly. The truth matters on Commical. Kris, thank you so much for joining me. I've really enjoyed chatting with you, and I've learned a lot, and I'm sure the people listening will learn a lot too.

Guest 27:34

You're welcome. You take care of yourself.

Marie 27:37

You too. Thank you.

Marie 27:41

And that's Commical for this week. If you'd like to join the show, suggest a topic or ask me a question, hit me up on Instagram at Marieldagle, or email me at comicalpodcast@gmail.com. Thanks so much for listening. See you.