Productivity almost always suffers in times of great change, because employee stress dramatically increases due to the universal fear of the unknown. In these times, communication becomes more important than ever.
Often senior executives genuinely believe they are communicating with employees when it comes to matters that affect them. Unfortunately, they often underestimate the number of matters that includes, for the fact is that most high level decisions will affect employees in one way or
another. (That’s why a new law recently went into effect in Britain forcing employers to answer employees’ questions on any changes or decisions that affect them.)
So how do you know what is important to employees and what to tell them? Well, you need to put yourself in the position, the mind, the heart of employeesone employee at a time. If you were that person, what would you be worried about right now in the current situation? What would be important for you to know? What is the worst thing that could happen, and would you want to know about it in advance? How would you want to be told?
Of course, you can’t answer those questions yourself....