Kick off the clogs and break the bad news

Bad news goes about in clogs, good news in stockinged feet, or so the old saying goes. Personally, I prefer to treat bad news like a hand grenade. People can see you holding it, so don’t tease them ­ throw it and be ready to pick up the pieces.

Bad news is bad news. There’s no way of dressing it up, and the kindest thing to do ultimately is to be straight with people. Poor results, redundancies, scandals ­ the economy remains awash with bad news at the moment, and the accountancy profession has certainly suffered, with any practice exposed to the shortfall in M&A work likely to be forced into making non-voluntary redundancies.

This is always painful, and your natural reaction to giving the news may well be to withhold it for as long as possible. This is understandable; in terms of unpleasantness giving bad news is perhaps second only to getting it. A method I find useful in these situations is the CAP plan; concern, action, perspective.

First and foremost, concern for the individual facing the sack must be your absolute priority ­ remember you’re dealing with a person and not, as that awful modern phrase has it, a human resource. Look the employee in the eye and tell it to them straight; don’t brush them off with talk of corporate plans or your own efforts to streamline the business.

Thankfully, the industry’s reputation for integrity is well-deserved; people management at most firms should be a far cry from horror stories of workers being dismissed by text message or email.

Next comes action. Demonstrate to the employee what you’ve done to keep them, what you’re doing to help soften the blow (a generous redundancy package will always help here), and that nothing more can be done to keep people on amid such tough circumstances.

Finally, help them keep things in perspective by discussing their future prospects in the industry, the likelihood of things picking up again, and the possibility of rejoining the firm again when they do.

When the recovery takes hold, professional services firms will be among those best placed to profit from an upswing in demand, and bringing people back on board who know your business inside out is often the quickest way to raise capacity again.

Jack Downton is MD of The Influence Business