As companies respond to changing business conditions their people react to change in a variety of often unexpected ways. Whether restructuring or reassessing leadership capability, successful companies take account of the human impact of change. This critical success factor was reinforced recently when assisting a medium-sized company make some painful restructuring decisions and associated redundancies. Whilst rarely an easy decision the lessons from such an exercise reinforce the need for good planning and smooth execution. These two factors alone make a major contribution to minimising the impact of unwelcomed news and helping both employers and employees focus on the future.

In these situations the presence of an experienced psychologist both on announcement day and as a follow up support service makes all the difference. In this particular case employee reaction to the announcement was well managed and supported over the course of several weeks. This significantly minimised the risk of litigation and helped affected employees focus on the future. Inexperienced managers are often caught unaware when confronted with employees behaving unexpectedly, so a major focus is on preparing such managers for dealing with the emotions associated with change and developing the skills to handle difficult situations.

Nowhere is this more challenging than dealing with change in larger organisations. This is the situation with a global company we are currently working with who are about to undergo significant change to both their operational processes and their people. A key focus will be on developing a coherent leadership team capable of managing this human aspect whilst continuing to reduce costs and increase revenue in a competitive environment. Clearly this is a challenging project by any scale and will be launched at an upcoming executive team conference next month. Talent Solutions is playing a key role in designing the leadership and change content for this event.

Finally, a recent national roll-out of our Building Lasting Relationships workshop saw further development in our suite of emotional intelligence programs. This time the focus was on developing the skills of a national professional services firm as they came to grips with the challenges of working with some demanding clients and colleagues. Participants left the workshop equipped with practical strategies for understanding and managing the strong emotions that damage relationships.