Downsizing Leaves Bitter Taste Among Survivors : Work: Remaining workers are apt to feel disenfranchised, suffer low morale and fear burnout, surveys show.

Survivors of corporate downsizing are likely to have low morale and do only what is asked of them in a backlash of negativism, surveys show.

“We’re creating in the United States one of the most jaundiced work forces that I’ve seen in a long time,” said Quinn Spitzer, president of Kepner-Tregoe, a management consulting firm in Skillman, N.J.

“More damning than any overt negative reaction from employees to downsizing is quantitative compliance--people just doing exactly what they’re asked, not investing themselves in the business,” Spitzer said.

Thus, “a lot of re-engineering attempts are failing because there are a lot of managers not paying attention to the employee aspect of it,” he said.

Some two-thirds of 400 executives polled in a recent Kepner-Tregoe survey said employee morale was worse or the same after a restructuring or downsizing.

“Employees have just gone through all these layoffs, and every (subsequent) change they’re looking at they figure is going to be bad for them,” Spitzer said.

Other surveys also paint a picture of widespread employee dissatisfaction.

Of 150 executives polled from the largest 1,000 corporations for Accountemps, a temporary employment agency based in Menlo Park, Calif., 52% said the potential for employee burnout at downsized companies is “fairly high,” and 33% called it “very high.”

Only 14% termed the burnout potential “low.”

“This survey points out there are also major risks involved in becoming too lean, such as losing core talent to job burnout,” warned Max Messmer, Accountemps’ chairman.

Only a third of the companies that cut staff from 1988 to 1993 got any boost in worker productivity, according to the American Management Assn.

“Almost invariably,” the AMA found after surveying 870 human resources executives, “worker morale suffered” after downsizing.

Employees who survive downsizing may become despondent as they see their chances for promotion evaporate when entire levels of management jobs above them are wiped out.

“The situation is especially bad in many restructured companies, where people feel stuck and uninspired now that opportunities for upward movement have dried up,” said psychologist Harry Levinson, who heads the Levinson Institute, of Waltham, Mass., a management consultant firm.

“Managers tell me they’re having trouble motivating people to go the extra mile,” he said.

“It’s worse than an employee sitting there and saying, ‘My two friends have been laid off, my work load is up 40% and my salary is down 10% and am I despondent,’ ” Spitzer said.

t “It’s workers saying, ‘The company’s values and my values will never be reconciled, and as a consequence I’ll park myself here until better opportunities come along.’ ”

Workers are reacting negatively to employers who declare that shareholders come first, customers second “and the employee about 12th,” Spitzer said.

“What worries me is the number of companies going through re-engineering who assume you can make structural systems changes, just assuming employees will fall in line. A lot of these attempts are failing because managers are not paying attention to the employee aspect of it,” Spitzer said.