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Social strategy, sensitive social situations and social conflict
When employee relations come under strain, you need both to understand the balance of power and to know how to act. SHIGAN supports executive committees, HR directors and managers in situations where the social balance becomes unstable, conflictual or decisive: restructurings, transformations, sensitive negotiations, collective conflicts, mobilisations, degraded employee relations, managerial tensions or social communication under pressure.
Our strength lies in a rare combination: experts able to think strategy and to intervene on the ground. Former HR directors, former union officials, practitioners of negotiation and of social crisis management, they know the logic, constraints and levers on both sides of the table. That experience allows us to read a situation quickly, identify the key players, understand what lies behind stated positions and build realistic ways out.
SHIGAN intervenes where theory is no longer enough: to defuse tension, restore room for negotiation, prepare a sensitive social sequence, secure a transformation or rebuild a shared road map in a degraded environment.
Social conflict, restructuring, merger or acquisition: SHIGAN advises executives and supports teams. Diagnosis, negotiation, communication.
You are preparing a restructuring and want to keep control of its communication.
A social conflict is open, or is taking shape in your organisation.
A merger or acquisition is being prepared and you must announce it to your teams.
You need to conduct negotiations or relations with employee representatives.
You want to anticipate a social crisis before it breaks out.
Your managers must be prepared to hold their role in a tense period.
What we do
Social analysis and diagnosis
Employee relations and negotiations
Communication (restructuring, social conflict, mergers, acquisitions)
Management training
Anticipating and managing social crises
Diagnose and anticipate
A social strategy starts with a precise reading of the situation and of the actors.
Social analysis and diagnosis
We establish the social assessment with your managerial teams. We identify the sticking points, the points of passage and the actors who matter to you.
Anticipation and management of social crisis
We anticipate social crises, then support you in managing conflicts and crises when they arise.
Lead social dialogue and communicate
Social strategy is played out in negotiation and in the way it is explained.
Conducting social relations and negotiations
We support you in conducting social relations and negotiations, according to the play of actors.
Communication in restructuring, social conflict, merger and acquisition
We support the communication of the changes that affect your teams: restructuring, social conflict, merger, acquisition.
Training for managers
We train managers for sensitive social situations.
For a crisis that goes beyond the social field, see crisis communications and influence.
Our method
Start from your strategic objectives.
Read the play of actors: who matters, who blocks, who can unblock.
Identify with your managerial teams the sticking points and the points of passage.
Build the social strategy, then support it through decisions.
Support your teams in deployment, conflict management and crisis management.
Each engagement adapts these steps to the social situation, its actors and its calendar. We agree the role of each party and the expected deliverables at the first conversation.
Expected results
Defusing a social conflict in under 12 hours: a situation that was initially local threatens to become an open conflict; rapid analysis of the actors and the demands, identification of the levers for an exit, preparation of management and construction of a sequence that restores dialogue.
Rebuilding a shared roadmap in a deeply degraded social environment: management, supervisors and employee representatives no longer share either a diagnosis or priorities; objectifying the situation, identifying points of convergence, gradually rebuilding a space for discussion.
Preparing a restructuring exposed socially, politically and in the media: an integrated strategy combining social dialogue, communication, stakeholders and the sequencing of the decision.
Regaining control of a situation that has become emotional: when positions freeze and facts matter less than perceptions, understanding the drivers of the conflict, reducing tension and recreating the conditions for rational decisions.
Preparing managers for a tense social environment: understanding their role, communicating in sensitive periods, handling irritants and avoiding the behaviours that feed a crisis.
Examples of situations we have handled
Ending a social conflict, then rebuilding the conditions for lasting dialogue
Emergency support to the management of an industrial site of an international group facing a well-supported strike, with disruption of production, local media exposure and a gradual hardening of the balance of power. SHIGAN intervened on site alongside management and HR to analyse the players and the dynamics of the conflict, inform the negotiation strategy, maintain the conditions for dialogue and support internal communication, until an agreement allowed activity to resume after three and a half days of conflict.
The work continued beyond the emergency with an in-depth review, the identification of irritants and weak signals, the redefinition of the social strategy and of the employee relations agenda, and the training of managers. The aim: not only to emerge from the crisis, but to address what had made it possible and to strengthen the organisation's lasting capacity to anticipate the next tensions.
Making social acceptability a lever in a takeover
Support to a consortium of bidders for the takeover of a large national retailer in difficulty, in a highly exposed legal process. SHIGAN worked on mapping the union players, the comparative analysis of the offers from a social point of view, contacts with the trade unions and the promotion of commitments on employment, redeployment and employee relations. The challenge: to make the industrial project understood as solid while building the conditions for its acceptability among employee representatives.
Preparing a takeover with staff representatives
Support to a major player in retail in its project to take over an international retailer and close to a thousand employees. Ahead of the exchanges with staff representatives, SHIGAN worked on the social reading of the offer, the conditions for transferring contracts and collectively agreed benefits, the treatment of employees not retained, commitments on employment and the future organisation of employee relations. The aim: to anticipate points of friction and allow the executive to present an industrial project that is credible on the social front too.
Refounding employee relations in a large multi-site industrial group
Support to a large French industrial and technology group wishing to change its model of employee relations. After a diagnosis involving management, HR and different trade unions across several sites, SHIGAN helped organise joint work on practices, friction points and the social agenda. Sessions bringing together managers and union representatives helped bring out shared rules, develop informal dialogue and prepare future negotiations more effectively.
Turning managers into genuine players in employee relations
Design and roll-out, over several years, of an action-training cycle for site directors and HR managers of an agri-food industrial group. Based on situations genuinely encountered in the company, the programme works on understanding union logic, actor systems, negotiation, weak signals, conflict management and managerial posture. The aim: to move employee relations out of the hands of HR specialists and give managers the means to act before tensions become crises.
Lastingly transforming the culture of employee relations
Long-term support to a large international industrial group to change its employee relations: diagnosis of practices and representations, work with management and HR, awareness sessions for the executive committee, training for managers and HR business partners, creation of an internal network of ambassadors and support in sensitive situations. An approach combining strategy, social communication and operational intervention to put management back at the heart of dialogue with employees and their representatives.
Unblocking a dysfunctional social relationship
Long-term support to an industrial and technology company facing severely degraded employee relations and deadlocks with some staff representatives. SHIGAN analyses the actor systems, the union balance and management's room for manoeuvre, up to intermediation with regional or national union structures where necessary, in order to recreate the conditions for working dialogue.
A social conflict is a situation of collective disagreement between an organisation and its employees or their representatives, which may take the form of a strike, a blockage or a crisis of trust. It is played out as much on facts as on perceptions and balances of power.
When should a restructuring be prepared on the social side?
As early as possible, as soon as the decision is contemplated. Anticipating allows the actors, the points of tension and the sequences of dialogue to be identified before communication becomes urgent.
What does SHIGAN do in a social conflict?
SHIGAN establishes a diagnosis of the play of actors, clarifies the objectives and the room for manoeuvre, builds the social strategy and supports dialogue with employee representatives. The firm also prepares managers and communication.
Do you support negotiations?
Yes, in support of executives and teams. SHIGAN prepares the sequences, the arguments and the scenarios, without replacing management or the negotiators.
Do you train managers?
Yes. Training and workshops prepare managers to hold their role, to communicate in a tense period and to handle the irritants that feed a crisis.
Let's talk about your situation
A first conversation is enough to know whether this engagement matches what you are looking for.
