Richard Hillier

Open up opportunities for your staff to use services like EAP (Employee assistance program) or other counselling services (something to look at paying for 1-2 sessions). Remember that the staff will be going through the grieving process so ensure that there is space and time for people to connect and process. Where possible look at additional support network to help your staff and connect with those that seem most impacted 1:1 to allow them the time to talk etc.

Managing layoffs are really difficult, they are often the space where you are damned if you and damned if you don't. There are two different parties involved - those impacted - those not impacted For those not impacted the key thing to remember is that people have lost friends and quickly. Unlike a resignation where they will likely know and have time to process, with layoffs they happen quick and limited time to process. This will mean the team will be grieving. A loss has been suffered. Worth thinking about: - Giving them some time off / finish early to process. - Team re-group to re-set and focus on what still needs to be done - Connect with everyone 1:1 to answer questions - Connect with the team altogether to answer questions

I always say there are three sides to every story: - Side A - Side B - Somewhere in the middle, the truth People will see and experience things differently (this is why eyewitness testimony is often deemed unreliable in court cases). Before you do anything you need to listen to every party, get all the facts and information before doing anything. Active listening skills will play a key part here to make sure: - You have all the information - Help you to get all the facts; allow parties to speak openly with you - Help you to ask the right questions Through listening and getting all the facts you will be able to help work with the parties to move forward.

The core concept is also about understanding within your organisation what a good leader looks like, having this clarified as well. Understand the skills of the good leaders in the organisation and begin to map out learning pathways for the future leaders. There should be an opportunity for them to really focus on themselves and understand the role of moving into leadership role, is this something they want? There are too many "accidental manager", so called as they were promoted into the role but not something they wanted to do. Helping the future leaders really understand the role and expectations is key. Then working with them to have opportunities to develop the skills they lack or need to enhance.

More often than not this isn't a hiring challenge but is more of a manager / company issue. If leavers are coming from one team then this is a manager problem that could be linked too: - Misalignment on the role - Unclear expectations - Poor onboarding - Poor manager (not trained etc) Worth running manager training for all managers to get alignment of what a manager looks like at the company. Spend time ensuring values alignment with everyone and all the leaders. Drive accountability too; running training is good but should focus on impact outside the classroom. Be clear with expectations and outcomes you will be assessing managers on going forward. Also run interview training for all interview teams to ensure good hiring.

When interviewing candidate and leveraging competencies you need to ensure that you fully understand: - The role and role requirements - The profile they are looking to hire - Competencies needed for the role - The assessment criteria for the role Before the interview you should ensure that you also know the competencies you are assessing for within a 45-60 min interview its difficult to cover more than 1 or 2 max. Once you know this ensure that the questions you have prepared are: - Focussing on the competencies you are assessing - Enable you to assess fairly - Are open ended and either situational or behavioural focussed. Best practice would be leveraging interview scorecards to ensure fairness in approach and structure.