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Thanks for listening to the Learning English for Work podcast from BBC Learning English.
We're working on a new series of our business podcast, Office English.
For now, here's an episode from last year which teaches you language you can use in everyday situations at work.
We hope you enjoy it!
sometimes we have to give or receive bad news at work even if you're really kind of grown up about it it's still a difficult thing to hear so to give that information is equally difficult i'd say it's important to remember that you're talking to a real person and this bad news is going to affect them in a personal way and you have to take that into account rather than just following business kind of speak.
In this episode of Office English, we're talking about the language of bad news.
Welcome to Office English, the podcast where we discuss business language to help you succeed at work.
Today, we're talking about bad news.
Nobody likes talking about bad news, right, Phil?
But sometimes at work we have to.
Okay, you're talking about bad news.
What do we mean by bad news at work?
What things can be bad news at work?
So it's things that might affect your job in a bad way.
So it might be a company -wide problem, maybe financial difficulties, decisions have to be made about what people can afford, what jobs are going to remain and who might be losing their job or it might be something more specific to you so your manager might need to give you bad news about a report you've written or some work you've done or something that's happened in your department that affects you and when people give bad news they often don't like doing it and so they'll often use something which we call a business euphemism and that means sort of a word or a phrase which sounds innocent sounds
harmless but actually could mean something quite bad or serious.
So they're trying to hide the bad news from you or make it sound like a positive thing when it might actually be bad for your future at the company.
So in this episode of Office English we're going to look at some of these business euphemisms so that you can recognise bad news and we'll also talk about some phrases you can use if you need to deliver bad news to somebody else.
right let's start with recognizing bad news how do managers talk about problems at work phil what phrases should we look out for uh yes keep your ears open for some of these phrases like if you hear about budget cuts there's often consequences to that aren't there yeah budget cuts means less money which means probably fewer things that can have money spent on them.
You mean fewer things like fewer people sometimes?
Sometimes yes fewer projects fewer people.
Another one is something called headwinds so if people talk about financial headwinds that means basically forces that are stopping the company from making as much money as they might like to make.
Sounds like something from sailing that one headwinds.
Yeah I think it probably is a metaphor.
Also you'll often hear of companies talk about needing to make efficiencies What do they mean by that?
Well, it's similar to budget cuts.
Making efficiencies means spending less money to get the same amount of work done, which sometimes means fewer people to get the same amount of work done.
Yeah, so a lot of these, I mean, they don't have to be, but they often do mean that there's going to be fewer people working at the place that you work, which could be bad news.
And these euphemisms carry on because we actually have euphemisms that specifically mean people losing their jobs, but we perhaps don't want to say that.
So we can talk about downsizing.
How is downsizing made?
Where is that coming from?
So if we downsize something, we make it smaller.
This is quite an American term, I think, an American way to say that the company is going to change and there will be fewer jobs at the end of the process so downsizing means the whole workforce gets smaller yeah another one we use is restructuring so the word restructuring changing the structure of something we might not think that would necessarily mean that there would be people losing their jobs but it usually does restructuring is a euphemism for we are going through a process where there will be fewer people working here and another one we've got here is streamlining i think in engineering
or design streamlining is you make something aerodynamic so that it can go faster so you take bits off it so it can go faster well for business sometimes that means taking people out so that it can work better or cheaper all of these three words downsizing restructuring streamlining they don't always mean um that people will lose their jobs sometimes they just mean reorganizations but that means change and upheaval so that might be bad news for you at work and then we have some words that are specifically about people losing their jobs um we've got redundancies and layoffs um what's what's a redundancy
what's the difference between being made redundant and getting sacked for example?
So being sacked is when you lose your job because of something that you've done or because of your performance at work usually.
Whereas being made redundant in the UK we have a very formal process for redundancies.
It is basically where a company has to decide that they need to make their workforce smaller and so some people need to lose their jobs, but it's not their fault.
So being made redundant just means that your role won't exist anymore, your job won't exist anymore.
And the company makes that decision, but it's not something that you've done.
It's just something that's kind of outside of your control, really.
Yeah. And when we talk about layoffs, I mean, that's usually the same thing.
It's companies reducing the number of people working for them to save money.
What about this expression to let someone go?
What do you think of that expression?
This is sort of a phrase that we use to say that somebody has to lose their job.
It's another one of these euphemisms.
To let someone go almost sounds like you're doing them a favour when actually you're saying that they can't work here anymore for various reasons.
So to let someone go means to make them redundant so that they lose their job.
Right so we now know some words to talk about bad news at work But imagine we're the ones giving the bad news.
What else do we need to say?
Well, this is difficult.
So this will be different depending on the country that you work in, the context that you work in.
Some cultures are more upfront about things, so they're more likely to just say what the problem is and give you the bad news.
some cultures are more likely to use a lot of these euphemisms that we've talked about if you have to do it yourself it's not a nice thing to do probably the best way is to start by being honest so say something like we've had to make some tough decisions and after a long and careful review we have decided that so that's showing that you've taken a decision that you're about to communicate very seriously.
You're taking this whole conversation seriously.
Yeah, there's an emphasis there.
It's a tough decision.
They're saying it's been difficult, long and careful there.
It's this idea that a lot of effort has gone into this decision.
It wasn't just made quickly.
It's been thought about for a long time.
Another thing that might be helpful is to try and be quite clear and concise.
So a short piece of news.
So you could say, unfortunately, your role is being made redundant.
So it's really clear what is happening in your bad news.
There's something else that's interesting here as well.
If you say to someone, your role is being made redundant, you're making it about the position in the company, you're not making it about that individual.
And there's reasons why that happens in the UK.
But in general, it's kind of depersonalising it.
So it's probably easier to talk about someone's role than the person themselves.
Yes, and if you're having to give someone bad news, it's likely that they might be upset.
So, you need to think about how you're going to show them that you care and also kind of make sure that they're okay.
So, you could say, is there somebody that I can call for you?
Would you like to take a moment?
If someone's upset, you could ask, would you like to take a moment?
So, they've just got time to kind of react to what you're telling them, which is probably quite a big shock and it's often good at this moment to um yeah avoid cliches so things like oh look on the bright side I mean there could be nice sentiment behind it but if it's a cliche it sort of suggests you haven't really been thinking about it and you haven't you don't really mean it so do try to make sure when you're talking to someone sound like you mean what you say don't just use the same old tired cliches yeah and you probably don't want to just try and cheer them up.
Your natural instinct when you speak to someone and they're upset is to try and cheer them up but they probably don't want to hear that from the person that has given them the bad news or that they might see as responsible for their misfortune.
So yeah it's a really difficult thing to do basically.
Unfortunately even if you're calm and sympathetic with bad news people can still be upset.
Let's hear again from our BBC Learning English colleagues.
it's important to remember that you're talking to a real person and this bad news is going to affect them in a personal way and you have to take that into account rather than just following business kind of speak I think there's a temptation to say to someone that something isn't maybe as bad as it is and that makes the whole situation even more difficult I think You need to be up front with someone, even if it's difficult, because otherwise you're just kicking that can down the road and they'll have to deal with it, possibly even bigger problem later on.
OK, so Neil used a phrase there, kicking the can down the road.
What does that mean, Phil?
It's a metaphor and it means that instead of dealing with something that you need to deal with now, you put it off until some time in the future.
But if we go back to the metaphor, instead of picking the can up and throwing it in the bin, you're kicking it further down the road, so you'll just have to do it later on when you get to it.
Yeah, the problem doesn't go away, so you're sort of delaying it rather than solving it.
And I think this is where, as we said earlier, it's important to be clear when you're giving bad news, so you don't want to leave the conversation either if you're giving bad news or you're receiving it.
And what needs to be communicated hasn't been communicated.
So it's important to be clear and not kind of hide too much behind euphemisms and phrases that aren't clear about what actually needs to happen.
So if you're trying to be too kind, you're actually creating a problem further down the line, you're kicking the can down the road.
Now, if you're stuck for how to start the conversation you could just say unfortunately I've got some bad news yeah I think that's a good idea so start the conversation and warn someone that they're about to hear something bad is probably a good way to start off don't start the conversation with a nice chit chat and a really friendly conversation because they'll just think it's a normal meeting and then you know the bad news comes and shocks them even more that's it for this episode of office English.
Hopefully you won't have any bad news at work soon, but if you do, these phrases can help you communicate.
If you like this podcast, you can find more programmes and activities to help you with your English at bbclearningenglish .com.
Next time, we'll be talking about how to deal with disagreements at work.
See you then. Bye. Bye.
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And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage.
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Jupiter versus Saturn.
It's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice.
After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.
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