10 Golden Rules for communicating with employees during uncertain times

Be it a restructure, redundancy or M&A process, these are my 10 Golden Rules for communicating with employees during uncertain times

1. Increase the frequency of communications

2. Address the ‘knowns’ and ‘unknowns’

3. Help less skilled people managers get comfortable with ambiguity

4. Reinforce face-to-face communications with written support material, video etc

5. Don’t let perfect get in the way of good if there’s something urgent to share

6. Wherever possible, tell employees before the media or external stakeholders

7. Overamp on the FAQs – solicit questions from across the organisation

8. Provide broad timelines for key decisions so employees know ‘what next’

9. Explain the processes that might be invisible to most ie due diligence so people understand the delays

10. NEVER promise what you have no control over