The F-word and the C-word … Furlough and Communication

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been talking to exceptionally talented candidates at all levels who are looking for their new home. Some of them have been pushed into their job search with redundancies (as a result of the other C word), many others are still employed but on furlough and yes, they’re spending some of their new found free time searching for jobs!

Why??

It surprised me at first but the more candidates I speak with, the more I hear the same worries. What is troubling is these concerns all seem to stem from a something as simple as…communication, more specifically a lack of it. It seems that lots of businesses started out with the best intentions - weekly zoom calls and quizzes galore but it’s petered out over time (let’s be honest we’re all sick of a zoom quiz now!!) and the regular communication has stopped, understandably leaving anxiety in its place.

I’ve seen from personal experience that it’s difficult for businesses to get the right balance, especially those with some staff working whilst others are on furlough. It can be a very sensitive situation, the focus is rightly on getting your business through this crisis in the best shape possible and time is spent making sure that happens. But please, in all of this don’t forget the guys sat at home with no work to do. They just might not be sat out in the garden relaxing, patiently waiting for the call to come back to work. Like many of the candidates I have been speaking to recently, they may be genuinely concerned about whether they will have a job to come back to or not.

It’s understandably a tough time for many businesses and there are hard decisions to be made, but if you are in a position to reassure your staff please do it; let them know how business is doing, what work is going on to see it through and what the plan is to get them back into their role. If you can’t offer that security right now please still keep the lines of communication open regularly, schedule in catch up calls, check in to see how they are and encourage the team culture you had before to continue.

Don’t lose your superstars just because they felt left out in the cold.