MARTHA GROVES
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Executives who breathe a sigh of relief after handing out all the pink
slips, figuring that the hard part is over, have a nasty surprise in store.
Workers who remain after a sizable layoff are likely to feel guilty, stressed,
angry, sad, fearful, insecure, intimidated—and often resentful about
doing the added work that will be necessary to make up for those who are
gone. Handled improperly, this so called survivor syndrome can seriously
impair a company's campaign to return to health.
"The survivors are in what we call permanent white water," said
Judy Kneisley, senior vice president and managing director in the Los Angeles
office of Drake Beam Morin, an outplacement firm that counsels companies
on how to handle layoffs and their aftermath.
To deal with these unsettled souls, Kneisley added, managers need to be
taught to "manage in a changing environment that's highly ambiguous
. . . and where people will be sensing a lack of direction and continuity."
Obviously, that is not always an easy task—especially when the managers
themselves might be fretting about their own futures and that of the company.
"The surviving work force is the toughest situation you're dealing
with," said Tom Capizi, human resources director for Quantum Corp.,
a high-tech company in Milpitas, Calif., that plans to close a manufacturing
unit in June, eliminating 2,200 jobs.
Human resources executives and outplacement consultants agree that a few
steps, both before and after the layoffs, are absolute musts for helping
survivors cope:
· Make senior managers visible and available.
· Explain why the downsizing is necessary and what criteria were
used to decide who would be let go.
· Let survivors know that those laid off have been provided with
a "safety net" of severance pay and help in finding other jobs.
· Communicate—often and specifically—the organization's
mission.
· Encourage distressed workers to seek psychological counseling through
the company's employee assistance program.
· Offer classes on change and transition.
· Help survivors deal with increased workloads—or, perhaps more
important, make some hard choices about eliminating work that might lighten
the burden without wrecking the bottom line.
Here are tips for managers dealing with the aftermath of a layoff:
· Identification: Identify with being a survivor. Think
of challenging experiences in the past that you've survived and the coping
skills that got you through .
· Expectations: Practice expecting to have things turn out
well. Your expectations often crease a self-fulfilling prophecy.
· Support: Form a support group. Meet regularly with a small
group of co-workers experiencing the same frustrations. Venting frustrations
can be therapeutic.
· Humor: Keep a sense of humor. You know what they say: "Laughter
is the best medicine."
· Flexibility: Be flexible and adaptable. Survivors have a
greater than-normal range of responses in critical situations.
· Intuition: Listen to your inner voice. Adverse situations
often enhance our intuitive abilities. Instead of dismissing "hunches,"
place a higher value on them.
· Empathy: Practice empathy. Ask yourself what effect the
downsizing and reorganization have had on other managers.
· Service: Help others cope. Research on the long-term effects
of going through a disaster shows that people who are busy helping others
experience less emotional trauma afterward.
To all of those, Al Siebert, a Portland, Ore., psychologist who consults
on survivor syndrome, would add: Be prepared for a great deal of anger among
the remaining employees after the ax falls. "Survivors are not going
to appreciate the fact that management chose them to be kept, Siebert said.
"It's a shock to management to realize there's such a reservoir of
ill will"
The answer is evidence of what is known as "survivor's remorse"
or "survivor's guilt"—similar to the emotions that make a
plane crash survivor feel guilty about being spared when others perished.
Often survivors of a layoff will tackle the work at hand simply out of fear
that otherwise they'll be the next to go. But managers should realize that
a slowdown will almost inevitably ensue.
"Sometimes the momentum just stops and you can see a low-level depression"
said Diana Miller, general manager in the San Marino office of Lee Hecht
Harrison, an outplacement firm. "It's not just possible, it's probable."
Patagonia, the Ventura-based maker of rugged clothing for such sports as
skiing, kayaking and mountaineering, found that to be the case despite an
unusual degree of openness about the company's unprecedented decision to
lay off 120 people back in 1991.
"We did acknowledge there was kind of a catatonic state for 18 months,"
said Terri Wolfe, director of human resources.
In the years before the layoffs, Patagonia had decided on an aggressive
growth plan, but it turned out the company did not have the management expertise
to handle it. Inventory got out of hand, and the company's banking relationship
soured when the lender became involved in a merger. The owners decided that
at 600 employees, the company had gotten far larger than desirable.
"The best way for us to explain how we'd gotten to where we were was
to be 100% truthful and honest," Wolfe said. Opening the financial
books helped employees realize that layoffs, though unfortunate, were necessary.
"We started open communication and continued that," Wolfe said.
We made sure there were objective criteria [for the layoffs].
"It was good for the survivors to see we treated people as part of
the collective group," Wolfe said.
Even so, the responses of those laid off ran the gamut from acceptance to
denial to rage. Among survivors, despite the care taken to explain the situation,
energy and enthusiasm lagged.
The company persisted in holding frequent forums and encouraging people
to question the new management team (most of whom had been promoted from
within). Every employee received a crash course in business and finance
to aid in understanding the numbers the company had started to share. Important
changes occurred in the corporate culture, which previously had been quite
paternalistic. Workers who had once blindly accepted that managers would
competently lead now began to insist on information, challenge their supervisors
and take responsibility.
The privately held company has shown steady growth in sales, to $149 million
last year from $103.6 million in 1991. (It does not disclose profit.) And
its U.S. employment is back up to 600, although much of the job growth has
come from opening retail stores.
Tina Coates, a paralegal at Patagonia who weathered the layoffs, said the
trauma helped staffers pull together. Headquarters people helped out at
the distribution center and vice versa. Employees gained a greater appreciation
for their colleagues' jobs.
Patagonia's new ventures, including a move into clothing made from organic
cotton, have helped spark enthusiasm. Although the memory of the layoffs
is something "you're not going to shake, Coates said, "you've
got to put that behind you and focus on the future."