{"id":901,"date":"2024-06-20T13:40:12","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T13:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mo.work\/uncategorized\/redundancies-how-to-improve-engagement-after-systemic-change\/"},"modified":"2025-04-10T15:53:49","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T14:53:49","slug":"layoffs-and-mergers-how-to-improve-engagement-after-systemic-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mo.work\/insights\/layoffs-and-mergers-how-to-improve-engagement-after-systemic-change\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Improve Engagement After Redundancies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Has your company recently gone through a seismic organisational shift? It can be hard to improve engagement after redundancies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mergers, return to office and, of course, redundancies can negatively impact your employee engagement scores. Any change on this scale can be incredibly disruptive to employee engagement and happiness, no matter how HR and the executive board have prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your employee engagement survey results have dropped since the change, it\u2019s probably time to ask whether anything on a macro-cultural level has gone wrong. If so, it is time to dig deeper to find where the true problem lies \u2014 and what can be done to turn it around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we\u2019ll explore different scenarios that can influence your employee experience, and offer a strategy to put things right, ensuring you keep your best people productive and happy.<\/p>\n\n\n

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How Change Impacts Employee Engagement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mergers, Redundancies and Remote Work<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Have you recently seen two newly merged teams clashing over how to work together? Is it because the hierarchy and lines of communication among them are unclear following the merger? Or are they struggling to adapt to new processes and expectations that aren\u2019t what they were used to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019ve recently had to make redundancies, your remaining employees might now be worried about their job security. After all, it\u2019s hard to feel engaged in the workplace if you\u2019re wondering whether you need to look for another job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their relationships have become more transactional without the usual office natter, and they feel less appreciated because so much of their work has now become invisible to the others in their team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are all issues where HR can use its influence in the boardroom to inform senior leaders of the situation on the ground. They can also drive change<\/a> on a systemic level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can Change Improve Employee Engagement?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Managers Are Key to Systemic Changes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Even when issues might have a macro-cultural cause, it\u2019s important to not lose sight of the role of the manager. 70% of the variance in employee engagement is influenced solely by management, not by HR strategies, according to Gallup.<\/em> While HR can be a driver on the systemic level, solutions to cultural issues will almost always require frontline managers to play a leading role. Let\u2019s talk more about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even when an employee engagement issue appears to be rooted in something systemic, it\u2019s still likely that management will play a crucial role in addressing it. The change from in-person to remote work is a great example here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There can be initiatives led by HR to break the problem of team disengagement. These include carving out time for a social call between team members at the start of the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if employees feel like their manager is often withdrawn during these calls, concerned mostly with ending the call on time so that everyone can get on with work, the idea proposed by HR will only make things worse. It\u2019ll reinforce the message that their managers don\u2019t care about them as people. Additionally, they\u2019ll become more disengaged with work as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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