Day of Disclosure

Okay, you're ready. You've got your boss on board. You have your friends pre-informed. An announcement goes out and they gather everyone they can from your workplace into one....little...room.

Resist the effort to run away at this point (unless being physically threatened).

Don't forget to breathe.

How have you made this easier?

You have spread the friendlies throughout the room. Your friends are not in one clump but instead are spread out amongst the crowd.

HR is ready but not over-zealous.

Your boss has some statement of support for you (yeah, you might want to get something like that if possible).

People in the room are thinking of lots of possiblities:

Mass lay-off.
Someone needs bone marrow.
We won the lottery (those group tickets paid off).
You are quitting.
You are dying.

Someone needs to bring this group to order. How this works is dependent on your relationship with these people.

Options:

1. Your Boss introduces the HR person. The HR person can:
a. say you have an announcement and hand it to you.
b. make the announcement for you.

2. HR can bypass your boss all together and proceed to 1a or 1b.

3. You can do it.

My circumstance was like this.

I work in a smallish department on a medium size campus. I have a few close friends in the department. About a week prior, I told my friends. The Friday prior I told my boss that I needed a meeting with him and HR. He freaked (thought lawsuit) so I told him.

On Monday, my boss got the official word and went with the woman from HR to talk to my boss's boss. We then had a meeting of my department. All but two of these people had been told so this was my practice round.

I was glad I had a practice round.

HR got over-zealous and just blurted everything out first thing. This is not how I wanted it to go. Luckily, most of the group was not suprised. But I learned that HR had to be reined in.

We collected people from the campus for the big meeting. Everyone from the first meeting was in the second. My whole chain of command was there as well, ready for support.

I didn't give anyone else a chance to start the meeting. I didn't want it to be a scary situation so I started it off with a joke.

"I bet you are all wondering why I called you here? Well, I wanted to share a fantastic business opportunity with all of...." There was laughter. Success!

So then I said it. So they would know it was not a joke I introduced HR and let my friends confirm the situation.

They gave me a standing ovation. WEIRD!

I let them ask me any questions and then I re-introduced the HR lady and told them.

"There are probably a lot of things you want to ask with me not in the room. So, I am going to go back to my office and you can express any concerns with these folks. I'll be around all day of you have any questions you want to ask privately."

And that was it. The next day I was finally FULL TIME.

That was...geez...three years ago.

I still have the same office.