Jana Vondran

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There's an upside to a downsize. Here's how company leaders can make a difference and maintain their staff's trust. In the past few years, many companies are still facing economic challenges in a fluctuating market, which also makes it difficult when leaders are forced to have tough conversations with their dedicated team about potential or necessary cutbacks. Demonstrating transparency and open communication is one of the most important steps to keep your stakeholders well-informed along the way. If you work together with your team to engage in ideas for alternative solutions, you will set your organization up for success and strengthen your potential to come out on top in the long term. Below, 13 Fast Company Executive Board members share their best practices to help leaders prepare their teams for cutbacks in the business world.

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Clear expectations are essential for managers to get the results they want while empowering employees to do their best work. As a business leader, you're not only responsible for completing your own work but also for ensuring that your employees are clear on what they need to do and have the resources and leeway to accomplish the goals you’ve set. Your team members want and need to know what you're expecting of them, but if you don't establish and present this information clearly and carefully, it can lead to confusion and anxiety. It's critical to check in with your employees and ensure that they understand what needs to be done to meet (and hopefully exceed) your expectations. Below, the members of Fast Company Executive Board share 15 smart strategies for setting expectations with your employees the right way.

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If you’re seeing high rates of resignation, these strategies can help you identify the reasons why. When a company is experiencing high attrition rates, it isn’t always easy to pinpoint the reason (or reasons) employees are leaving. Countless factors can influence someone’s decision to stay at or leave their place of employment; some are within the organization’s control, and some are not. However, when a company is seeing steady turnover, there are likely one or more underlying problems that are happening on the inside. It’s critical for leadership to identify those issues to prevent even more employees from leaving—especially in today’s tight workers’ market. If your company is struggling with steady or growing employee turnover rates, try these 15 strategies from the members of Fast Company Executive Board to get to the root of the problem. The sooner you discover the cause(s), the sooner you can implement real solutions.

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Don't let your company's departments get cut off from each other and stop communicating about and progressing toward shared goals. In the early days of a startup, most team members likely wear multiple hats and have to pitch in together on a variety of projects. But as companies grow and develop, different departments may adopt their own project management and communications systems. While it may seem like it's a good idea for every team to find and leverage the tools and processes that work best for them, a drive for "departmental efficiency" can have the unintended effect of creating team silos. If every team or department in an organization is working with a different set of processes, systems, and tools, they may end up engaged in redundant work, overlook important tasks, and struggle to effectively communicate updates and needs with other stakeholders. All of these misfires can eventually lead to frustration for both the staff and the customers and clients the business serves. Fortunately, with the right strategies from leadership, it's possible to prevent the prevalence and minimize the impact of working in silos. Below, 16 Fast Company Executive Board members share their best tips and tricks for establishing a culture that values both maximum efficiency and productive collaboration.