Over the course of the last eight months corporate Ireland has witnessed three high profile redundancy announcements, none of which had a straightforward passage in terms of media coverage. Each announcement seemed to attract criticism for the manner in which the news was communicated to affected employees.
Vodafone’s decision in May to relocate its call centre operations attracted criticism when it was reported that some employees learned of the decision by e-mail [1]. This was compounded by an organised campaign of opposition to the decision that focused on the commercial justification for the move within the context of the overall financial performance of the Irish operations [2].
Media coverage of Talk Talk’s announcement in September saw reporting focus on the issues surrounding the abruptness of the announcement and the lack of notice to the government [3]. While Aviva’s announcement last month also provoked condemnation related to the lack of clarity around the impact on employees [4].
Clearly the communication of such bad news will never be welcomed by either affected employees or the government of the day, as testified by the examples drawn. All the more reason that the PR professional tasked with developing the announcement communications plan seeks to ensure that there is no exposure to reputational damage from accusations of insensitivity, inappropriateness or uncertainty in the delivery of the announcement.
In two of the cases mentioned above there was the potential for negative spill-over from the redundancy announcement on the sponsorship activities of the companies concerned, an area that the PR professional also has a responsibility to protect.
From our experience the priorities for ensuring an appropriate announcement that minimises the impact on the client’s corporate reputation are the communication of a transparent and sound commercial rationale for the decision and ensuring that the delivery of the announcement is sensitive to the concerns of all stakeholders, especially affected employees.
EB
Keating & Associates Director, Emmet Barrett, will present the company’s experience of and insights into communicating redundancy announcements at the Legal-Island Annual Review of Employment Law taking place on Wednesday 16th November in the Radisson Blu Hotel at Dublin Airport and on Tuesday 29th November at the Stillorgan Park Hotel in Dublin. Details available at http://www.legal-island.ie/.
[1]http://www.independent.ie/national-news/leading-companies-shed-200-jobs-2660234.html
[2] http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0527/vodafone.html
[3] http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0912/1224303945684.html
[4] http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1020/1224306125735.html