We continue to see layoffs across industries and experts say it likely won’t end in the near future. The last few years have shown us that preparing for change is invaluable to maintaining strong, working teams and organizations amidst industry and economic turbulence. Prepare your organization to withstand any impending changes, so you aren’t scrambling should you need to adapt.

In working with clients in the meetings and events industry to optimize their teams, we’ve seen the power of being preemptive. We want to share effective strategies you can immediately implement with your organization to effectively weather a layoff storm.

Effective change management strategies

Here are five strategies you can implement with your organization right away to prepare for future change.

1) Incorporate an agile staffing strategy

An agile talent strategy is highly effective to solve interim needs and gain expert knowledge without a big overhead. By leveraging a combination of full-time employees and experts that operate outside of an organization (like freelance or contract workers), you can actually increase income while avoiding additional fixed costs.

By tapping into the freelance economy, you gain access to skilled independent professionals that work in conjunction with your company’s internal employees and supplement the skills and expertise you need to keep driving business forward.

2) Support your team’s strengths

It is important to identify strengths when building agile teams to assess any skills gaps or roles that require strengths your team will need. Gaps can be filled with agile talent – you can “plug and play” the exact skill set(s) you need.

When facing layoffs, it is also critical that your remaining team feels valued, useful, and fully supported to do their jobs well. Focusing on your team members' strengths, and supporting them there, can improve performance, enhance teamwork, increase job satisfaction, encourage a positive company culture, and ultimately reduce the likelihood of them leaving.

3) Focus on soft skills

Soft skills, also known as interpersonal skills or people skills, are becoming increasingly important in the event industry and future of work as new challenges emerge. The ability to effectively communicate and collaborate with team members, especially in times of transition or change, is paramount to overall success.

Soft skills such as empathy, emotional intelligence, collaboration, conflict resolution, and interpersonal skills are critical for highly functioning teams. Companies that invest in developing their employees' soft skills will be better positioned to maintain a strong company culture and succeed in a rapidly changing business environment. Learn more about the benefits of fostering your teams’ soft skills here.

4) Transparency

Be as transparent as possible in critical situations; don’t leave people in the dark. Establish a communication plan to align team members that remain and ensure they are clear on why the situation is happening, what to expect, and the organization’s goals to retain trust.

It’s important to maintain a strong foundation of trust and solid communication throughout the transition so your team feels safe and secure. Keep them informed on any updates or changes that arise so they aren’t waiting for the other shoe to drop.

5) Be proactive

Don’t wait until the last minute to apply these strategies. Be as preventative and prepared as possible so that if change comes knocking you are armed for a smooth transition. Have a bench of vetted talent that you trust and can pull from whenever you need it; they’ll be ready to go, so you don’t miss a beat.

While you may not always be able to prevent layoffs entirely, you can prepare and support your remaining team with everything they need to succeed.

Stay prepared

Ready to stack your agile talent bench but don’t know where to start? We can help! Soundings helps our customers create agile staffing models by leveraging our talent community of independent professionals to serve your needs–when you need them.

Working with Soundings gives you access to on-demand highly skilled and specialized talent expertly matched to meet your unique needs, whether freelance, contract, or full-time. Our talent pool of 2,000+ event & marketing professionals is diverse and well versed in relevant expertise with the incentive to be on the cutting edge.

Learn more about how we can help you stay prepared by contacting us here.

5 tips to survive layoffs in your organization