Mel: [00:00:00] Hey there friend, and welcome to the second episode of our short, punchy series on all things people change. I'm Mel Loy and I'm recording this episode on the Lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people, here in Meanjin, Brisbane.

And today we're going to tackle one of the biggest hairiest scariest, whatever you wanna call it, people change scenarios, restructures. Like last week's episode, a quick reminder that I am talking from the Australian perspective here, and every country will have different employment laws you need to consider, but again, some of the same principles will still apply.

Now, specifically I'm talking about restructures, whereas where there is a reduction in roles and typically a large scale restructure. In Australia, we have very strict labor laws and employee agreements, courtesy of a very strong union environment. So there are things you can and can't do during these situations.

As a change comms or internal comms, or change management professional or even a leader, it's likely you'll be working [00:01:00] closely with your HR or industrial relations colleagues on these restructure projects. And we do have to take our cues from them in terms of following the right process. But having... honestly lost count of how many restructures I've been involved with. From a comms perspective, I can share what the typical process is and what that means from your comms perspective. So let's get amongst it.

Step number one, awareness that change is coming. Let's be honest here though, a restructure is usually the worst kept secret in any organisation. You'll need to expect that and therefore be ready to speak as quickly as possible if you want Any chance of controlling the narrative? This stage is about laying the groundwork for what's to come, but it's also about recognising that the second you mention the word restructure in any of its forms, optimising, downsizing, transformation, whatever it generates uncertainty and question number one on [00:02:00] everyone's minds will be, do I still have a job?

Mel: And at this stage, the answer isn't going to give them a lot of comfort. It will probably be along the lines of we don't know yet, but as soon as we have clarity, we'll be having one-on-one conversations with anyone whose role is impacted. There are some people who right away, will just start looking for new opportunities elsewhere.

There are others who will sit and wait. Some will probably get a bit noisy. It's all to be expected. Also, consider that restructures can be done in a couple of different ways, and one is the big. Rip off the bandaid scenario where all layers of the organisation are done at once. Another way to do it is in layers, so starting at the top and then working your way down.

There's pros and cons for each one. Is that the rip? The bandaid off solution usually means it's all done faster, but it could be or result in more reshaping later on because as people get into their roles and responsibilities, it could be a bit chaotic for a while because everything's changing all at once.[00:03:00]

The section second option, which is about layering the restructure. The pros are that as each layer of leadership is settled, they can then help design the next layer down, so they have some say in it, and they have intel on what will work and what won't. The cons are that it leaves people further down the chain in a state of uncertainty for much longer, and that can result in higher turnover, disengagement, poor productivity, et cetera.

From a comms perspective, there's a few things you need to do in this phase, and number one is have your FAQs ready. You will not have all the answers for everything yet, but you do need to at least be able to share a timeline of activity, the reasons why the organisation has made the decision, et cetera.

Number two is to brief leaders really well. They will be the ones getting all the questions from their team members. So you need to give them some in-depth briefings as much as possible within the confines of confidentiality, of course, and answer their questions [00:04:00] as well as you can. Number three is, and this goes without saying, make the comms about the people, not about the leaders or the organisation.

It's just basic empathy, and it's one thing you might have to remind leaders about. It's not about you. I've heard leaders when they've been communicating about restructures, say things like, this is so hard for me to tell you, or it's not personal mate, for the person who's getting the news that they likely won't have a job.

It probably feels pretty personal. recognise people's feelings in your communication. So it's saying things like, I know there is a lot of uncertainty here and it's absolutely okay to feel upset by this, and also consider how you can offer support to people. Whether it's through conversations, employee assistance program, or some other avenue.

And number four, have a leak strategy. Particularly if you work in a very highly unionised industry, be prepared for some public backlash. So get on the front foot, give those union a heads up about what's coming, [00:05:00] even if you don't have all the details yet. Normally this is a HR responsibility, but you might be involved in helping them to draft the communication.

So that's step one. Just saying, Hey, this is happening. Step two is consultation. So in Australia, a restructure will usually trigger the consultation process. And what that means is that leadership will put forward a proposed new structure. People will then have a few weeks to digest it, review it, ask questions, share feedback, et cetera.

And it's called the consultation period. Now, typically you will have a separate mailbox. That is managed by someone from HR for all the feedback and questions that come through. And it's a good idea to not let this be an anonymous thing because many of the questions coming through you'll find will be very personalised.

It'll be about my role, my job, and you want to be able to have conversations with those people directly. Other feedback might be around responsibility. So for example, if this team no longer exists, well who does [00:06:00] these tasks? Now, another thing to note is that. These consultation efforts will be led by the leader of a team or a department.

So they will work with HR on the proposed structure and then share it with their teams. Usually you'll have conversations first with the individuals who you know will be impacted before holding an information session very quickly afterwards to the whole team. Two important things to note. You must use the word proposed on everything to do with the draft structure, and this just covers everyone's buts.

The second thing is to make sure you're using two-way communication so that people have time to ask questions and get a really good understanding of the reasoning behind the proposed changes. Or one more thing here, and this is something HR should take care of, but just double check that whatever the proposal is that they're putting forward, that it is within the realms of what's allowed within your enterprise agreement as well, because that can come back to bite you now.

It is a good idea to set up an intranet site or something [00:07:00] similar with the information about the proposed changes, the timeline of activity, a copy of the proposed structure for easy reference, FAQs, et cetera. Basically a hub of info, which you just keep updating as you go. And another thing to note, a consultation period often doesn't apply to the C-suite when they are restructured.

And the reason for this is. That those people are usually on individual contracts and not covered by an ea, and those individual contracts usually allow for them to be removed from the organisation with very short notice, but with a nice golden handshake on the way out. So in effect, it's a little easier to restructure a C-suite, but obviously that has massive flow on impacts to the rest of the organisation.

So that's phase number two. Consultation. Phase number three is when we confirm the approved or the final structure. So once all the feedback has been gathered and the consultation period has been closed, that typically comms and HR and the leader will come together. You'll look [00:08:00] through the feedback and surface the key themes that have come through.

It is a good idea to look at it. As themes rather than trying to address every individual piece of feedback. And the reason for that is because you really risk inconsistency in responses to individuals. Um, there also might be hundreds and hundreds of pieces of feedback. So it's just not viable. And a lot of it is very similar, but also when you start responding to some individuals and not others feedback, then you get this.

What about me? Kind of avalanche of questions. So you'll go through all the responses and determine what the key themes are. And then the HR team will work with managers to see how they respond to those themes if in any way by looking at the structure, again, there is nothing to say. They have to change the structure in response to feedback, but if it's good feedback and they've made a good point, they probably will before you then announce the confirmed structure to everyone.

HR will need to figure out who needs to have a [00:09:00] one-on-one conversation to confirm their role is no longer required, and what that means for them, what their options are. Now, those people should obviously be spoken to first before you announce to the entire team what's happening. But it has to be done really quickly because word gets around quickly as we know.

And then when you bring everyone together to share the confirmed structure first, go through those key themes from the feedback and explain how you've responded to those if you have and you haven't. And then share that structure in detail. Provide opportunities for questions. After that, then you just talk through, well, what's the process of what's next?

Now, a big question for impacted people here will be, do I get a redundancy payout? And how much will it be? Well, firstly, redundancy payouts have different eligibility requirements depending on where you work and what industry you're in. So, for example, you usually need to have been an permanent employee for a certain period of time.

Um, how much you get depends on how long you've been at a business. In what capacity was that? [00:10:00] Part-time, full-time? A mixture of both what your pay rate is, et cetera. Some companies I've worked for have had redundancy calculators built on their interest, so you can actually go in and put your figures in and figure it out yourself.

Now again, talking from the Australian perspective, what often happens is that those people whose roles have been made redundant will then go into what's called a redeployment pool, and that just means. They've got a couple of weeks where they might be offered a role somewhere else in the organisation, or they could apply for another role in the organisation if there's some available.

But here's the thing, the role that the organisation offers them must be comparable to the role they're in now. And one thing to note too, if they are offered a comparable role during this period and they reject it, they may not be eligible for redundancy payout. So during this period, some people just may opt out to, they might decide with their manager's blessing, of course, to just take leave until their official last day.

Um, and then after the redeployment period is up, those people who are eligible [00:11:00] for redundancy will get their official letter with all the details. People who have found jobs elsewhere in the business will just transition into those roles. Now an important part of offboarding is making sure that people have a really good experience when they leave the organisation.

So this means that from a comms perspective, we need to help leaders really think about putting in the effort to thank people, recognise the value they've delivered, celebrate their contributions. They also need to recognise that people will be going through a tough time. And that's whether you're staying or going, you know, we need to make space for that.

Some people will be very happy to leave. Don't get me wrong. I was very happy to leave. Uh, but some people might not be so happy to leave or the people who are left behind, you know, feel very sad that they're going to be missing their friends, and that's all understandable. So leaders need to have space for that too.

Some companies also have really good off-boarding processes where, for instance, they give money to people towards further training they can do when they leave. Um, they can set them up with a service that helps them write [00:12:00] resumes, et cetera. You want people to leave with a good impression of the organisation because at some point the future, you may want them back.

I've seen that happen. Or they will be talking to other people who are considering applying for a role at your organisation and you want them to say nice things about you. Okay. And then step four is embedding, and this is the part of any change, not just restructures, but any change that is often missed or just brushed off because we move on to other things.

But embedding is important, especially in a restructure. Think about some of the things people are likely to encounter. So for example, I used to talk to Marie about this. Who do I talk to now? Or, this team used to do this task, but what does it do now? Or who does this task now? Um, or even the structure isn't really working in this team, what can we do?

You need to anticipate these scenarios and questions and help leaders respond. So you might, for example, provide a template to each leader and like a one pager and with their team, they fill it in, [00:13:00] it's... kind of an about our team kind of template that shares who's in the team, what they do, and how to work with them.

They can share that with their stakeholders in the business, put it on their intranet site. Maybe you have a series of webinars sort of getting to know you, what each team does or those sorts of things, make them really fun and interactive to you could have a new structure, suggestion box, a virtual suggestion box or something similar where people can share their thoughts about what's working, what's not.

It's really important also to go back to the why behind this change in the first place and ask is the business delivering on that promise? If you are, that's great and you should absolutely talk about it. Show the restructure wasn't just something your company does every few years to cut costs, but it had a strategic reason behind it and it's starting to pay off.

Okay, it's time for the recap of episode two in our People Change series, and today it was all about the restructure. And specifically a restructure where there's redundancies. And the first step is to raise awareness. [00:14:00] So get on it quickly because rumor is spread quickly, but this is where you say what you're doing at a very high level.

You make the case for change. Give people an indication of what to expect, and you'll also work on your leak strategy and give unions the heads up if that's applicable. Second phase is consultation period. So after one-on-ones with people who are potentially impacted by the proposed structure, release the proposed structure to the team for review and feedback, and they usually have about two weeks to provide feedback or ask questions.

Phase three is confirmed structure. So when the feedback has been received and the final structure is designed, then again you have one-on-ones with impacted people and then share the final structure with the whole team. Now in this session, you share the key themes from the feedback, how you responded, as well as the next steps.

This is typically also when the redeployment period kicks off for people whose roles have been impacted. And then it's about making sure there's a really good off-boarding experience for people. [00:15:00] And step four is embedding. So this is about helping teams to navigate the new structure and new ways of working and of course celebrating the wins.

Alright, team, that's all today. I hope that, uh, you found some of that interesting or maybe there were some things you didn't know about restructures that now you do. As always, if you have any questions that you would like me to answer or any ideas for topics on the show, please get in touch. I'm all ears.

In the meantime, keep doing amazing things and bye for now.