Learn from Coverage of Tight Times
-first published in RTNDA communicator on November 30, 2008
With the new year upon us, many newsrooms begin with smaller budgets—and in some cases—smaller workforces. Many present day news managers entered this industry in the speedy growth times of the early 1980s, so it’s still difficult to adjust to a shrinking pie. But other industries have spent the same 25 years doing just that. And all the downsizing, layoffs, and closings we’ve covered as news people can lead us to better management techniques with the staff we have left behind.
If your newsroom has had a round of layoffs to meet tighter budgets in the new year, your employees—each and every one of them—are wondering if their number will be up soon. One of the keys to easing some of those “who’s next” worries is to set up new lines of communications between you and your employees. Many newsrooms have long been guilty of keeping the boss at arm’s length and behind closed doors until there’s a crisis. Top managers often don’t give individual attention to employees except in formal review situations or when someone is in trouble. A smaller workplace staff gives even the busiest manager the chance to reinvent the ways to have personal interactions with the employees. Top human resource managers suggest now is the time for you to start one-on-one meetings with employees—and to do so frequently. Set up the meetings as a time to address the employee’s agenda—not yours. Be a listener first, responding to what the employee is thinking. And take the meetings beyond just worries of job security. The employees you have left are valuable stakeholders in the news operation and its product.
That value may be somewhat diminished by the fact that many of your surviving employees will feel like victims. Though they managed to make it through a round of downsizing and layoffs, they now see their current situation as more work for the same pay. Some will think those who actually lost their jobs were the lucky ones. It’s important to let these employees know that life with a smaller workforce does not continue with a “business as usual” mentality. Be sensitive to the changes that have affected the remaining employees and use the personal listening time you’re setting up to explore the best ways to move forward productively and with a reasonable workload. In this task, your surviving employees can be great assets. Use them to begin the separate your newsroom wheat from its chaff. Empower each and every remaining worker to find the parts of the workday that do not add to the on-air/on-line product and therefore contribute nothing to the final customer benefit. Your employees already have a mental list of those parts of their jobs that take lots of time but yield few benefits. Assemble those into a list of your own to trim down the daily workloads in the same way you have had to trim the staff size. That process leads to what some organizational analysts call “futuring.” The concept corresponds to exercises some managers practice regularly, assembling opportunities and threats in the competitive landscape. But this time, instead of focusing on the competition, focus internally on all you and your employees do. Find the opportunities that exist for a smaller staff, indentify the threats to the efficiency of a limited group of workers, and make changes to be sure those you have left are fully focused on the viewer/user benefit.
None of these changes will be easy—for you or your employees. All the listening, planning, and adjusting in the world won’t eliminate the stress everyone in the situation is facing. That makes this a good time to reacquaint yourself with your company’s employee assistance program. Most station owners, big or small, have programs set up that allows employees to get free, private (sometimes anonymous) counseling for problems at work or at home. Know the details to give employees during your individual talking time. And know them for yourself, as this is a trying time for managers, too.
The time to act on all these efforts to ease your employees into the new year is now. We know the time right after the downsizing is the most critical for the surviving employees. Television managers should take advantage of a later than usual start to sweeps this year to get those meetings set up and focus on the real people rather than the rundown. Hold back on any sweeps or other efforts that will put more pressure on your stressed-out employees. Make the new year an open time for everyone to readjust to the pressure at this new depth, and assist that process the best you can on a personal level with each of your charges. The changes in your budget and your staff may not have been your choice in the first place, but now you can take charge of the direction, the mood, and the literal future of the staff that remains. In fact, they’re counting on you to do just that.