One step forwards - 2 steps backwards
Article 5 – A new year brings new challenges
January 2020, post the Christmas party and our Christmas shutdown. The only time that management gets time to completely switch off is when the whole company is closed and it gives us time to reflect on the past year and prepare for the next. A managers’ job no matter what is never finished there is always something to prepare for and develop and I appreciate this time to reflect.
We re-joined January 2020 and the company felt alive, walking the factory floor there was a buzz and an atmosphere that I have never felt before, it was electric! We hit the ground running and at the start of February in our 1st monthly review we were hit with the success our highest grossing month in history – that 65 years of history so this was a big number and we blasted it out of the water. I sat in that meeting in awe of what had been achieved and couldn’t wait to relay this information to my management team on how well they had performed, we all committed to change and development and that proved that we can achieve more together.
That was short lived as when I returned from a skiing holiday in early March, to the waves of Coronavirus sweeping quickly across Europe to reach our shorelines in a matter of days and lockdown was brought in to effect our business took a severe nose dive being largely based in the Aerospace industry and I was sat in a meeting with 10 of my team members from across the business and the subject was REDUNDACY, this was before the Government had built the support packages, we saw no option and acted as any business would to save its skin. I was devasted this was my first time ever having to action a redundancy and it hurt deeply that I was having to do this to a team I had built and individually interviewed and hired it was heart breaking.
We shutdown for 2 weeks and during this time the government built the support package and we managed to keep the 10 team members on with the help of the support package. When it was announced the build-up of stress from the situation bought me to tears at the relief of this information. I care deeply about my teams and this was a great relief during this time.
We had now closed and I kept in touch with everyone with calls and WhatsApp text message to keep them all in the loop. We then reopened after two weeks with a skeleton crew for special orders for the new ventilator machines which was great to be able to assist with helping aid the NHS.
We stayed open with the small crew and although we held on the market place was going to take 3 – 4 years to recover and as the support changed with aim to bring employees back on line we were a long way off from being back at full capacity and so we had to make those 10 redundancies and yes it still hurt when the decision was made. We had to save the business which still employed 45 people. This is what you have to weigh up in this situation save the employees and keep them on as long as you can ultimately resulting in the demise of all jobs and the business or make the decision in time and all though hard and painful you keep the business afloat and you save more jobs than you lost.
Obviously, the latter is the choice that we would all make, but the way to make it as painless as possible is to be open and honest and speak to everyone in person, not over the phone or by text message. Putting all your cards on the table this way you can at least keep their trust. That way you know that when the time comes you can make that call and offer that same person their job back and when you offer that job back the response will be that they will quit any other job and come running to be with you and your team once again. That shows real trust and real loyalty to each other, and this was my greatest success coming out of COVID-19!
Be open and honest at all times and this will build trust and there is nothing better than being in any relationship when, honesty, trust and support are your highest priorities!