Layoff Survivor — What’s Your Plan?

After the Layoffs, the Intra-Company Depression

Lower productivity. An atmosphere of guilt, anxiety, and anger. The air filled with gossip. A breakdown of relationships and teamwork.

This isn’t exactly the scenario you need to see in your company during an economic downturn. But if your company doesn’t handle layoffs well, it’s exactly what you’re going to get. Fortunately, experts say that a disciplined leadership approach that values employees as human beings can help your company become lean while remaining competitively mean and productive.

Articles in the New York Times and USA Today detail how layoffs can affect the emotional climate at work:

• New York Times: “Dealing With Low Morale After Others Are Laid Off “
• USA Today: Layoff Survivors Face New Challenges, Complex Emotions

USA Today describes the common post-layoff morale problem:

Instead of getting pumped up, many find surviving layoffs leaves them feeling like someone’s let the air out of their tires.

Experts say layoffs hurt remaining employees as well as those who are let go — causing extra work and, stress, not to mention feelings of loss, instability and guilt.

Fifty-eight percent of human resource professionals reported a slump in morale after layoffs, according to a recent study by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Other side-effects: increased office gossip and a drop in company loyalty.

Increased stress, guilt, gossip and overall lower morale are among the topics covered in these articles. They both offer solid advice to workers about ways to stay ahead of the depressive curve.

Workers Share Responsibility for Post-Layoff Culture

These articles suggest various ways for employees who have survived layoffs to improve morale — and their own opportunities, including:

• Being willing to learn new skills to help out a company that now may have just as much work, but fewer hands to do it
• Leading by example, focusing on the positive, and committing to individual goals
• Fostering communication and keeping a sense of humor.
• Volunteering for tasks and projects that make you more essential and may help you develop new skills
• Avoiding gossip
• Considering moving on if morale remains low for more than three to six months following layoffs

Don’t Ask Where the Buck Stops — It Stops With Upper Management

While employees, individually and as a team, can certainly help make or break a post-layoff work environment, senior management is responsible for setting the tone that will make employees’ efforts possible.

That’s the essence of an article in Inc.com (“Layoffs, Morale And Right-Communication”). This article by Jamie Walters of Ivy Sea, Inc. offers strong cautions against ignoring employees’ needs for communication, buy-in and respectful treatment during layoffs:

You might … be asking, “If layoffs help improve our stock position, why do I need to worry about anything else?” Perhaps you’ve not noticed the rather large, dark-gray cloud attached to that silver lining? … So if layoffs are a standard reaction to the threat of a bear market, the next best thing is to be very mindful of the shadow-side [harm to morale] and right ways of communicating in this reality.

Employee morale is as important as ever during a cost-cutting period because continued productivity is crucial. The expenses that proactive, preventive measures require — such as those associated with an effective leadership and communication program — can significantly offset the costs that a company incurs when employees get laid off and others flee the coop, resulting in lowered productivity.

For example, if orientation and retention issues have carried high financial and cultural costs for a company, inspired leadership and high-quality communication prove a nominal expense to help decrease layoff-related costs, which otherwise threaten to increase when the company moves into expense-reduction mode.

Walters offers specific advice about the things upper management can and should do to help keep employee productivity and morale going during and after layoffs, including:

• Reconnecting to the company’s vision and mission, keeping them strongly in mind in layoff and restructuring decisions
• Involving employees in decisions as much as possible; they may suggest alternative cost-cutting measures or better reorganization possibilities
• Communicating, not dictating; even the harshest messages go over better when you interact with employees on a human level — and, being optimistic, some day you may want to hire some back
• Reviewing and selecting your resources wisely, including wise use of consultants and temporary help.

The bottom line

In today’s unsteady economic climate, it may well be necessary for your company to let some people go. If you’re a layoff survivor, do your best to avoid or remedy the natural morale let-down. If you’re in leadership, how well the business is able to compete in tough times — and how quickly it recovers in both the short and long terms — hinges to a large extent on how well you treat the people you have left.

Image courtesy craigmdennis via flickr

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