Having a Heart During Business Change

Jacqueline Miller, author of “Heart at Work” and a San Francisco-based consultant, helped lead Edison’s “Creating Our Future” workshops. Miller, who has been through many corporate acquisitions, mergers and divestitures as a senior HR executive, offers her insight about how to explain the opportunities that such change offers people.

Miller says that large-scale corporate change can offer employees these three opportunities:

1. They may have an even better opportunity with a new owner than they currently have.

2. They can find a new job with another company and look forward to the typical pay raise of 8 percent to 10 percent that most people get when they change jobs.

3. They will receive a severance package if they are let go.

Miller says it’s best to deal with employees in a straightforward and direct, but heartfelt, way. Companies have the obligation to deal with people as feeling, caring entities who need emotional support during the journey, not just paychecks.