Story: BMW’s Mini has announced it is cutting approximately 850 staff at its factory in Cowley, near Oxford. Employees were given one hour’s notice that they had lost their jobs, resulting in furious crowds, vegetables being thrown at management, unions becoming involved and wide-scale media condemnation.
Buffalo Communications MD, Kerry Hallard, comments:
“BMW has made a major mess of its reputation by completely ignoring the
fundamentals of internal and external communication. Its ex-employees are rightly
furious about this last-minute announcement making the company the villain of
the day – a complete failure on counts of morality and business sense.
“For a company that spends tens of millions each year building its brand,
quick-fire redundancies like this, without proactive communication, make no
sense whatsoever and will be hugely damaging to the company’s brand
goodwill.
“Redundancies are coming thick and fast as businesses suffer the recession.
But, even though they’re an unfortunate necessity of the downturn, they need to
be approached with tact and caution and with the courtesy that loyal employees
deserve. The Mini internal grapevine has been buzzing with talk of job-losses
for weeks now but employees were still left in the dark until the last possible
moment.
“Companies that have to make staff redundant should initiate early staff
communication first using direct announcements, one-on-one meetings and
Q&As before the news goes anywhere else. Staff should be given all
appropriate information from the start and given help going forward in finding
further employment. It’s also vital that staff are given ample time to deal
with the news and provide any feedback to the company – one hour simply isn’t
enough.
“Externally the company needed to communicate what it was doing, why, what it
was doing to fix things and exactly what provisions had been made for staff,
with a company spokesperson on hand to deliver the news.”
“If BMW Mini had observed a few of the simple laws of communication their
employees would have been much more prepared for the news, able to understand
why the company is making redundancies and hopefully be a lot more amenable to
the news. The company’s reputation cache would also have been in much better
shape.”
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