Position Integration: Points to Ponder

09/08/08

The weak economy finally leaves you no choice: You must lay off some people and distribute their duties among the rest. How can you integrate these positions effectively? Try these suggestions.

Shrink Recent Expansions
If you’ve spun new positions off from existing ones during boom times, target them first. You can probably fold them back into their parent jobs without making major changes in your chain of command.

Consolidate Using Common Traits
Integrate positions that share common traits whenever possible. Such traits might include, for example, communicating effectively with government inspectors, the media, or other outside parties; processing or distributing data using the same computer programs; or operating complementary machinery and equipment. Sales jobs could be integrated and workers trained to sell to multiple customers instead of having different reps calling on manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers.

Don’t allow departmental boundaries to inhibit your thinking. For example, some data processing and clerical positions might be redesigned to serve multiple departments, as word processing has for years. In the same fashion, warehouse and inventory control positions might be integrated so that the same employees receive, inspect, and stock incoming shipments, pull and pack customer orders, and update computerized inventory records.

Let People Participate
Ask those employees who are most likely to absorb downsized duties to suggest which positions the tasks should be assigned to. Although you shouldn’t expect an enthusiastic reply (after all, you’re piling on more work), you at least gave them some say in the process. That courtesy, coupled with the fact that they’ve been kept on the payroll (which is worth pointing out), can go a long way to having them accept your belt-tightening changes.

Retraining: A Virtual Certainty
No matter how strong their present skills, you’ll almost certainly have to train incumbent employees to some extent. Even those who continue to practice the same physical or mental skills will need help grasping the scope of their revised job description and developing rapport with new colleagues who’ve entered their orbit.

Beware Of Likely Responses
Once the layoffs are over and you’ve started condensing positions, anticipate these reactions from workers who have survived the cut.

Suspicion. Level with employees about their layoff status. If you believe the worst is over, say so. If more cutbacks may be needed, admit it. Don’t give them a false sense of security. Even in the worst of times, people respect honesty.

Resentment. Although they’re still employed, they won’t be happy about being asked to ‘do more with less’ (a good cliché to avoid) and seeing some of their friends get the ax. Accept this as a reality and move on.

Griping. A certain amount of complaining is healthy; folks need to blow off steam. You may find a few malcontents, however, whose prolonged whining threatens to poison the well for everyone. If a couple of counseling sessions don’t convince them to support the new organization, you may have to discharge them to salvage the rest.

Challenging new assignments
Downsizing always brings confusion about who’s supposed to do what. Revise job descriptions ASAP and have supervisors cover them in detail with your remaining employees. In the meantime, expect to hear, “That’s not my job”—and counter it by assigning other duties when necessary.