Why Effective Communication is Essential in Organizational Restructuring and Change Management?

When a company decides to undergo restructuring, the prime group affected by this change is the employees. This sensitive change is prone to invite a mixed bag of reactions. A significant variation in the structure can affect the employees emotionally as well as professionally. This makes it necessary that something as important as organizational restructuring be communicated effectively to your employees for they are the key assets of the organization.

What is organizational restructuring?

To meet evolving market conditions, a business must adjust itself accordingly to survive – and thrive. Organization restructuring is a logical and proactive response to circumstances that arise unexpectedly. These circumstances may occur due to change in competitive scenarios, emerging political, economical, social, technological, legal and environmental trends affecting your business.

Why do we need organizational restructuring?

It is a logical and practical response, but it also plays a vital role in aligning your organization to market realities. These are needed to make an organization function more efficiently and generate results that are profitable. It also looks after the internal affairs of an organization by framing strategies, optimizing resources, identify needs of redundancies and doing away with organizational lethargy. The objective of an organizational restructuring is to devise and implement courses of action that would ensure a faster, profitable and sustained growth of the business.

Employees and organizational restructuring

Whenever a company decides to implement new changes, it must consider how employees would react, as they are the major stakeholders. The feedback of the employees should be collected to find out whether they are fully aware and positive about the changes being implemented. In most cases, employees are not too keen about organizational changes, so it’s unpredictable how their reaction would be towards these changes. This is where a reliable human resource consultant and/or Change Management Consultant comes in, as they can help in formulating strategies to communicate and implement the changes effectively.

How to communicate about the big change

It is important that the relations between the employees and their supervisors are not frayed by the changes brought in by the company. For the employees to accept and embrace the changes, information must be imparted to them in a positive manner.

Here are some pointers on how effective communication can be achieved:

Be upfront and clear while conveying the changes

Many business leaders and HR Managers feel sceptical about how the employees would digets the change hence they resort to keeping the communication guarded, vague or highly confidential. However, it is observed that lack of optimum information results in rumours, grapevine, distorted information, fears and anxieties across the organization. It is always advisable to keep faith in your employees and believe that they have the capacity to handle these changes. They might feel displeased and discontented for a while but a straightforward approach is always favored and looked upon with appreciation. It is always better to listen your employees complaining about change and resisting it temporarily rather than they losing their trust in you because you failed to communicate transparently.

Highlight the benefits

Humans are rational creatures, behind every decision is a well thought out flowchart. If we are to look from an employee’s point of view, he or she will first think about the benefits that these changes will bring to them. Many mixed emotions and doubts appear among employees, when an organization is undergoing restructuring. Some of them might take such changes on a negative note hence it becomes a critical skill for the human resource manager to outline the positive effects organization restructuring will have on the employees and their future.

Explain the role of employees during the restructuring

The company is undergoing significant changes but how does this affect the employees? There are chances that the employees might get confused and not know what to do next. They need proper direction and delegation of tasks so that they don’t feel left out or neglected. Involving employees in the change process by allocating them special assignments pertaining to implementing change not only boosts their confidence but also helps in improving their skills to manage future change situations in your organization.

Explain the process clearly to them

A well thought out crisp, direct and energizing presentation, clearly explaining the process of the restructuring and an encouraging dialogue will do wonders. A two-way communication during change process is essential, so that employees can provide their feedback, voice out their genuine concerns, needs, challenges and support required to make the change happen. By skipping this step many organizations set their teams to fail implementing the change. The unattended concerns/challenges that are pushed under carpet surface when you least expect them and this affects the overall confidence of organization to implement the change.

Timely reminders

Frequent reminders and updates about the changes would help the employees to deal with them. Make use of internal resources of the organization which will aid in establishing a strong two-way communication between the authorities and the employees.

Communication is the key

To sustain and grow in the current market scenario is the motive that lies behind organizational restructuring. And to make it successful, an organization must maintain a strong two-way communication with its employees. The authorities must be open-minded and encourage employees to speak their mind, this will help them to gain their confidence. When the employees feel that they can confide with ease to their supervisors, they tend to be more open to changes, become more productive and co-operative.

Organizational restructuring and change management is needed to make a company function more efficiently and generate results that are profitable. But equally significant is that the process of restructuring be communicated effectively to your employees so that there is no ambiguity. If it seems that you need help in its implementation, you can always give us a call, one of the most experienced consulting firms for Organization Restructuring in Mumbai and Pune. Call: +91-7709992257 or email us at info@cerveausys.com to fix an appointment.