 Delivering bad news to staff is definitely one of the hardest jobs of being a manager. There is nothing nice about delivering bad news to employees and team members. It sucks, yet it is part of the job. Businesses have ups and downs, so you will have to deliver bad news multiple times during your management career. There are tried and tested steps to make difficult conversations easier for the recipients and for yourself. Minimising the anger, upset and damage to relationships from delivering bad news at work is very valuable to you and the business. Do a good job and team members are much less likely to leave, are likely to remain more motivated and produce higher team performance and appreciate you a lot more. Today we're going through firstly how to deliver bad news to team members to minimise the negative impact, secondly to provide context in an honest and straightforward way, third allow venting of emotions but minimise debates and fourth get the team focused on the future. Make your life at work a lot easier by doing the best job you can when delivering bad news to your team at work. My name is Jess Coles and if you're new here, Enhance.Training shares people management expertise, resources and courses teaching you how to build high performing teams. I've included links to additional videos and resources in the description below as well as the video timestamps so do take a look at these. And if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. So let's cover how to deliver bad news to team members to minimise the negative impact. No one likes delivering bad news. A lot of research on how best to give bad news comes from the medical profession. The four most important factors in order are firstly the news givers attitude, secondly the clarity of the message, third privacy and fourth the person's ability to answer questions. Your attitude and communication skills have an enormous impact on how your messages will be received. When you're delivering bad news to employees, get straight to the point. Don't spend time first engaging in small talk or asking how they are or building yourself up to give them the bad news. Instead, announce that you are delivering bad news. Give them literally a second or two to prepare themselves and then give them the bad news. For example, I have some bad news to share with you. You are being made redundant effective from Friday. I'm very sorry about this situation. Or I'm sharing some bad news. 10% of the workforce, including managers, will be made redundant in the next four weeks. Unfortunately, the company needs to cut its costs because of the downturn in its sales. I'm very sorry that this is happening. When prepared, people are surprisingly resilient. Prepare them for the bad news. Pause for a second or two and then give them the bad news. Show your emotions and sympathize with those receiving the news. Show your empathy and compassion in your tone of voice and in your body language. It is very important that your nonverbal communication mirrors the words you're using. When verbal and nonverbal communication are aligned, there is no confusion. Be ready for a lot of emotion in response. And remember, their reactions are about the situation, not about you personally. Stay empathetic, honest, and in control of your emotions. Second, when delivering bad news to staff, provide the context in an honest and straightforward way. Explain the context or the process of the actions leading up to the decision. Be honest and tell the truth. People receiving bad news appreciate a straight talking person who tells the truth with compassion. If there are things that you can't reveal, say you're unable to share them. Be honest and straightforward while explaining the situation that has led to the bad news. If for example, as we have been sharing with you over the last six months, the company has continued to make losses. We've undertaken several cost-cutting initiatives, which many of you have been involved with. We have now reached the point where cutting staff costs is the only practical option left. We've exhausted other options. The decision was taken this morning, and the leadership wanted you to know as soon as possible to reduce the uncertainty that everyone is feeling. Note the inclusive language, using a loss of we to emphasise that everyone is in it together. Provide the context in an honest and straightforward way. Third, when delivering bad news to staff, allow venting of emotions but minimise debate. Allow a lot of time for questions and answer the questions raised in an empathetic and honest way. Be straightforward and as factual as possible in your answers. Try to avoid giving opinions where possible. Allow the staff members to vent their emotions, their frustration, their anger and their anxiety about the future. Expect difficult questions and comments. Be prepared emotionally to handle them calmly with sympathy while remaining honest and straightforward. In these situations with emotions running high, avoid siding with or aligning yourself with the staff's position or situation. Don't say things like, yeah, I think this is a bad decision too. Stay neutral, sympathise but don't join them. Stop any debate starting on the merits of the decisions already made. Remind the staff that the decision has been taken and talking about it will not change that decision. Help staff to mentally move on to dealing with a situation. Provide information and what reassurance you can. Fourth, after delivering bad news to staff, get the team focused on the future. Give the staff time to process the bad news and what it means for them and then focus the staff on the future. The bad news you have communicated is almost guaranteed to give rise to additional problems that need solving. If for instance, who is going to do XYZ's job when they leave? Ask the team members to be part of the solution building process. This helps them focus on the future and move forward. If you're able to, create and communicate a vision of the future. Use straightforward everyday language to explain where you see the team going and what the future might look like. This helps provide direction and hope for the future. The worst thing at this point is for there not to be a plan and for everything to be disorganized. This increases the uncertainty. Instead, do your best to create as much certainty as possible by giving clear direction, by having clear, sensible and practical plans and communicating these with the team. Plan as many actions to create as much certainty as possible about the future. So in summary, delivering bad news to staff is really unpleasant. It can be really tough when you are responsible for looking after them and when you've been working with them for a period of time. Delivering bad news carefully, professionally and empathetically is really important to maintain motivation and team performance and to make the best out of a bad situation. As a reminder, when delivering bad news to staff, think about how to deliver bad news to team members to minimize the negative impact. Announce it, wait a few seconds and then give them the bad news. Second, provide the context in an honest and straightforward way. Third, allow venting of emotions but minimize the debate. And fourth, get the team focused on the future. If you have any questions on delivering bad news to staff, make difficult conversations easier. Please leave them in the comments below and I'll get back to you. Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.