The company decided to move his engineering sector to another location, since it was running out of space, the new location was to be modern and and has been placed for show piece for the company. Management felt certain that the employees will welcome to move. Negotiation was started to some local government authorities for suitable location.
To keep the work force fully informed, it was agreed that employees would be told that a move was to made, but as yet no site has been chosen.
The communication let to wide speculations among the engineers as
to the new site and various rumors circulated. Some engineers with families decided to look for alternative employment elsewhere, fearing that new location would not be within commuting distance. Morale left and productivity suffered.
Negotiation took longer then anticipated and no suitable location had been found after six months. By than morale was so low that the company decided to abandoned its relocation plan altogether. To overcome the space problem, the company split the engineering group by putting a smaller team into another factory site nearby.
Question: What went wrong? How would you have handled the case diferently?
