Humanity and compassion during times of disruption

Rupert Morrison, founder of Orgvue

By Rupert Morrison, founder of Orgvue

Across the world, businesses are still recovering from the financial strain of the COVID-19 pandemic. In its wake, the pandemic has left the UK facing a looming recession and a cost of living crisis. And only recently, the government’sGDP report confirmed that the economy is shrinking, putting more pressure on businesses and consumers through inflation.

Facts and figures always dominate the press and it’s easy to become numb to their impact and what they actually mean. But it’s important not to forget that an economic crisis for businesses also means an economic crisis for the workforce.

In times like this, the topic of ‘transformation’ crops up time and time again and there’s a significant emotional toll that can follow. Transformation done badly doesn’t just hit the bottom line, it also has a significant and long-term impact on the wellbeing of the people affected by knee-jerk and unclear decisions.

Today, business leaders have a tougher balancing act than ever, as they look to prioritise the prosperity of the business and still carry out their duty of care to employees. So, how should they navigate it?

Plan for all eventualities

If you’re always thinking short term, you become reactive by habit. In business, this is a dangerous mindset as it leaves you floundering and making decisions far too late. Whenever decisions are made at pace without the right data-driven mindset behind them, compassion is often the first casualty.

Instead, business leaders must still move at pace but give themselves the space to ask the right questions along the way. Only then can they regain the control required to take the right steps around difficult decisions, give their workforce clarity by communicating early and map out a plan of adjustments for the people most impacted.

For instance, what are the financial and political forces at play? What are the best and worst case scenarios for our plan if there are delays along the way? Ultimately, creating a plan or strategy isn’t one moment in time. It’s planning for multiple moments with different plans based on a number of scenarios, while being aware of the risks.

Part of this is long-term planning. By looking at the fundamentals, leaders can assess what’s required to deliver against business goals for the future and build the right workforce at the right time to perform against them. The point is, for the people involved in the fallout of any decision, it’s not just an employment contract that’s taken away, it’s a part of their lives that’s affected in a very real way. That’s why the duty of care organisations have to plan for significant events goes beyond the future prosperity of the business. It must also take into account the empathy and compassion required to do this work well.

How? This largely comes down to a continuous process of analysis, planning and replanning, based on different scenarios and key turning points. It’s adopting a ‘what if’ mindset. Rather than ‘what was’ or ‘what now’ , the ‘what if’ mindset allows you to experiment with possibilities and model future scenarios.

Navigate the boom and bust

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the only certainty today is uncertainty. So in the face of constant disruption, with everything from changing consumer behaviour to the cost of living crisis and the continuing hybrid working ‘do I, don’t I?’ saga, there’s a real risk that organisations will fall into the trap of boom and bust.

Businesses need to let go of the pipe-dream that some catch-all solution is going to land in their laps. It won’t. And to not be proactive and disciplined about the organisation’s response is to allow change to happen to you, which inevitably leads to a ‘hire in the good time, fire in the bad times’ mentality. That’s particularly true when considering the commercial side of transformation. But in isolation, that’s narrow-minded and naive.

Instead, organisations should take an informed and proactive approach – that’s whatthe concept of rightsizing is all about. Don’t jump into something blindly to cut costs; optimise your workforce for what you need now and in the future. This all comes back to bringing humanity to data-driven decision making. So, when difficult decisions have to be made, they can’t be thrown at the workforce without clarity or explanation around the long-term business case. For transformation to work, it needs to be clearly and honestly communicated to your employees, whether they stay or go.