Life After Layoffs

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 Capizzi, 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.

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 anger 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]. We decided to have very candid one-on-ones with the 120 people and gave them all two weeks’ notice so that they could come to some sense of closure.

“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. Insecurity was widespread, even though the company emphasized that it had cut as deeply as needed and would not be going through this again.

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 more adult relationship, Wolfe said, has helped boost sales and profit.

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.”

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How to Manage ‘Survivor Syndrome’

Here are some tips for managers dealing with the aftermath of a layoff:

* Identification: Identify with being a survivor. Think of challenging experiences you’ve survived and the coping skills that got you through.

* Expectations: Practice expecting to have things turn out well. Your expectations often create 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.

Source: Personnel Journal