Char­lene Gowrie MSc., LLB, BSc.

HRMATT mem­ber and HR Con­sul­tant/Cor­po­rate Coach

There are few ex­er­cis­es that can cause as much stress to an or­ga­ni­za­tion, as a re­trench­ment. Re­gard­less of the cir­cum­stances or the num­bers in­volved, it cre­ates a dif­fi­cult cli­mate for every­one. Un­der­stand­ably, em­ploy­ers tend to con­sid­er care­ful­ly how to treat those fac­ing re­dun­dan­cy. Em­pha­sis and pri­or­i­ty are giv­en to com­pli­ance with leg­is­la­tion, the process­es for se­lect­ing and ter­mi­nat­ing em­ploy­ees, sev­er­ance pack­ages, ex­ter­nal coun­selling etc. and whilst this is vi­tal, what about the sur­vivors, those who will re­main with the or­ga­ni­za­tion, those on whom the ex­ec­u­tive is de­pend­ing on to take the com­pa­ny for­ward.

The think­ing may be that staff who keep their jobs would be pleased and re­lieved, and of course, there is this, but these emo­tions are of­ten stymied by oth­er fac­tors as these feel­ings of grat­i­tude can of­ten ac­com­pa­nied by feel­ings of guilt. This phe­nom­e­non, known as Sur­vivor Syn­drome, is a com­mon con­se­quence of down­siz­ing and re­struc­tur­ing, and de­notes the emo­tion­al, psy­cho­log­i­cal, and or­ga­ni­za­tion­al reper­cus­sions faced by those who re­main em­ployed, or ‘sur­vive’ the re­dun­dan­cy pro­gramme. The ef­fects gen­er­al­ly in­clude anx­i­ety, im­paired pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, di­min­ished so­cial net­works and sup­port, re­duced trust, loy­al­ty and com­mit­ment to the or­ga­ni­za­tion, neg­a­tive at­ti­tudes, chal­lenges with work-life bal­ance and in some cas­es en­vy for those who have been giv­en the means to move on and now ap­pear free.

In­deed, Ap­pel­baum et al. (1999), state that the most com­mon cause of poor or­ga­ni­za­tion­al per­for­mance af­ter a re­trench­ment is that the or­ga­ni­za­tion may not be pre­pared for the low morale ex­pe­ri­enced by the sur­vivors and con­se­quent low­er pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Yet, rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle is pro­vid­ed for those who con­tin­ue to work with­in the or­ga­ni­za­tion.

It must be re­mem­bered that those em­ploy­ees who re­main with the or­gan­i­sa­tion be­come the or­gan­i­sa­tion, and will ul­ti­mate­ly be re­spon­si­ble for dri­ving for­ward the ob­jec­tives and at­tain­ing the suc­cess of the ‘new’ com­pa­ny. By not con­sid­er­ing the sur­vivors, com­pa­nies run the risk of staff feel­ing help­less, be­wil­dered and of­ten an­gry about what has hap­pened; not to men­tion over­worked and un­der-ap­pre­ci­at­ed if they have tak­en on ex­tra du­ties. If left un­man­aged, these feel­ings will ad­verse­ly af­fect per­for­mance.

So, what can the com­pa­ny do to ame­lio­rate this sit­u­a­tion?

The process of man­ag­ing em­ploy­ees through the tran­si­tion phase should in­volve guid­ing sur­vivors and help­ing them nav­i­gate the or­ga­ni­za­tion­al and emo­tion­al out­comes, as op­posed to try­ing to avoid or pre­vent them, as avert­ing them may not be pos­si­ble.

Sur­vivors should be able to have con­fi­dence in lead­er­ship, see man­age­ment liv­ing the or­ga­ni­za­tion­al val­ues through­out the ex­er­cise, have knowl­edge and un­der­stand­ing of the process and the fair treat­ment of their peers who were re­trenched; per­ceive that man­age­ment is aware of the prob­lems that may arise due to down­siz­ing (po­ten­tial job re-de­sign, in­creased work­loads, re­al­lo­ca­tion of per­sons etc.) and feel rec­og­nized for their ef­fort and that their work and as­so­ci­at­ed pres­sures may well in­crease.

Baruch and Hind (2000), sug­gest the fol­low­ing when de­sign­ing and im­ple­ment­ing a re­struc­tur­ing or down­siz­ing pro­gramme:

* Com­mu­ni­cate – cre­ate aware­ness of the cur­rent eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion/im­pact­ing event, the fu­ture of the com­pa­ny, whether there is like­ly to be more re­trench­ment etc., the is­sues that re­main­ing work­ers may ex­pe­ri­ence (po­ten­tial job re-de­sign, in­creased work­loads, etc.)

* En­sure fair and trans­par­ent process­es for se­lec­tion of those be­ing made re­dun­dant, cal­cu­la­tion of ben­e­fits as well as com­pli­ance with rel­e­vant leg­is­la­tion

* En­gen­der trust in man­age­r­i­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing for e.g. not buy­ing new cars, re­cruit­ing ex­pen­sive staff or pay­ing hefty bonus­es to ex­ec­u­tives whilst at the same time mak­ing a case to re­duce costs

* Main­tain or­ga­ni­za­tion val­ues through­out the process

* Fa­cil­i­tate ‘sup­port groups’ for all, where is­sues can be dis­cussed

* Col­lab­o­rate with unions where ap­pro­pri­ate

* Show ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the work of sur­viv­ing em­ploy­ees

* Rec­og­nize that peo­ple man­age change dif­fer­ent­ly

Sur­vivors are the ones cho­sen to se­cure the fu­ture of the com­pa­ny. As such, re­in­forc­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cal con­tract and fo­cus­ing on em­ploy­ee en­gage­ment, or­ga­ni­za­tion­al com­mit­ment and trust, are crit­i­cal to the ex­pe­ri­ence of the sur­vivor. By fail­ing to do so, com­pa­nies run the risk of staff feel­ing pow­er­less, in­se­cure and lost about what has hap­pened. At­ten­tion to those who re­main in em­ploy­ment is just as im­per­a­tive if the ob­jec­tives of the re­struc­tur­ing are to be achieved.

Or­ga­ni­za­tions should there­fore seek to an­tic­i­pate and pre­pare for the needs of sur­vivors.

The Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad & To­ba­go (HRMATT) is the lead­ing voice of the Hu­man Re­source Pro­fes­sion lo­cal­ly. HRMATT Says is a col­umn meant to ad­dress is­sues and con­cerns of pro­fes­sion­als and the gen­er­al pub­lic fo­cused on Hu­man­Cap­i­tal De­vel­op­ment.

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