Applause all around for Human Resource Executive Online's story about the right way to communicate bad news to your employees.

Suggested are all common-sense ideas, like "give people as much notice as possible so they can adjust their budgets," and "don't try to put a positive spin on bad news, but don't be gloomy either."

Also worth pointing out is that cutting pay is obviously less drastic than layoffs, but in a company that has constantly tied pay to performance by saying things like "You deserve a raise because you work so hard for the company," cutting pay feels like a devaluation of the worker. Be careful with this, says HRE Online.

Anyway. The key bit, we think, is here:
"Silence communicates, too. In a time of crisis, people need more candid information, not less."