Assignment: What to tell your staff?

You have just returned to your department following a meeting of the hospital's entire management staff: first-line supervisors, all middle managers and clinical service directors, and the chief executive officer and administrative staff. At this meeting, you learned that the board of directors recently voted to merge the hospital organization with the only other hospital in your county, a facility roughly twice the size of yours. You were further told that without this merger your hospital would descend into bankruptcy within one year. You have been directed to hold a department meeting to advise your staff of the merger. You are well aware that a sense of rivalry, at times reflected in antagonism and dislike, has existed between your hospital and the other institution for many years. Also, since no merger agreement is concluded overnight, you are seriously wondering why events leading up to the merger had apparently been kept secret. Before convening your department meeting you take some quiet time to think about the points to cover with staff and how to put them across.

What to tell your staff?

Write out the essence of your announcement to your employees (address your employees):

• Be as diplomatic as possible, but be truthful; tell employees just what you have been told.
• Deliver whatever assurances you are able to provide, but make no promises.
• Include some helpful points for yourself on how the subject of the merger might be approached with staff, keeping in mind that the grapevine may have already instilled considerable stress and anxiety You can include these at the beginning or at the end of your announcement in bullet form.
• Include questions you can anticipate from them and how you will respond (can be added at the end of your announcement).
• Do not forget to address a few questions you may need to have an appropriate response for at the time of your meeting. See examples below:
  • Are we getting fired?
  • Are we losing hours?

Resources:

https://www.business.com/articles/communicating-during-mergers/Links to an external site.

https://blog.careerminds.com/company-merger-acquisition-announcement-templateLinks to an external site.

https://sparkbay.com/en/culture-blog/communicate-merger-acquisition-43