Having Difficult Conversations
For people managers and HR professionals, our working lives are littered with difficult conversations. Often HR professionals end up dealing up the aftermath of a difficult conversation that has gone badly wrong at the hands of an untrained, nervous or autocratic line manager.
Of course, most of us find this part of our jobs stressful and it is human nature to use avoidance strategies or at best, postponement strategies but like going to the dentist, the longer it is left the more protracted, expensive and uncomfortable the treatment - so timing is particularly important.
Planning a conversation seems, on the face of it, an unusual thing to do. Yet planning is one of the keys to having a successful even if difficult conversation. Many people find it useful to role play with a colleague – get some feedback on how it sounded and importantly, how the recipient felt about it.
However well prepared and rehearsed we are, it is almost impossible to second guess whether we will be facing an angry or grief stricken individual – understanding potential responses and having a strategy for managing that response can be key to maintaining the employment relationship and to your professional reputation or that of the line manager.
Active listening is also a very important part of having that difficult conversation. The recipient will want to know that their views have been heard and not just glossed over. And active listening is much easier said than done – particularly when our own emotion is one of relief at having said that which we dreaded saying !
In the current financial crisis most of us will have to have many more difficult conversations than is the norm. There is no doubt that it is particularly hard to tell someone that their job is vulnerable – or worse. Perhaps surprisingly, acquisitions and mergers can also lead to difficult conversations; people choose to work for a particular organisation and can be quite emotional when they find they are about to work for another without any real choice.
Whether you, or a line manager, have to ask someone to shower more frequently or tell them that they no longer have a job we should not assume that the necessary skills are inherent; like other skills, they need to be learned.
With the upper limit for Employment Tribunal claims currently at £63,000, and compensation for discrimination claims uncapped – and let us not ignore Protective Aware claims at 9 weeks uncapped salary per person – there has never been a more opportune time for HR professionals to ensure that all people managers have the necessary skills to have a difficult conversation safely.
At Cullen Scholefield we have a number of cost effective strategies to help
- We can train your managers either to have the generic difficult conversation or to handle conflict based on redundancy or TUPE case studies.
- You can join our Circle of Peers and get the support you need from others facing similar situations.
Contact Cullen Scholefield and explore with us how we can help you take better care of yourself by reducing the stress not only of difficult conversations but also of managing the potential grievances and appeals that fall out of poorly managed difficult conversations.
If you would like a Word version of this article or just like to chat to us please contact us.
