LOSING a job for whatever reason is not fun, albeit painful. Employees who are laid off or fired experience stress due to:

• Loss of income

• Loss of capability to pay for immediate financial needs

• Feeling of betrayal

• Uncertainty of the future

• Feeling of disrespect

• Feeling of unfair treatment

• Feeling of embarrassment

• Low self-esteem

• Others, depending on the person.

An important task of management at this point is to reduce or eliminate as much aggravation as possible.

Author Matt Schlossberg suggests the following four action plans: transparency, restore dignity, help employees and thank employees


Transparency
Managers who lay off people all the time will tell you that surprising people is key. If people expect layoffs, they may quit the company early, leaving you without much needed resources to finish certain projects. Some may set up time bombs, spread unwanted rumors, or even show up at work with a gun. While there’s some truth to this, surprising employees may cause you to face even bigger challenges. Plus, issues such as time bombs and rumors can be prevented, if managed properly.

Transparency is the ultimate remedy that reduces these aggravations. It doesn’t mean you should tell your employees that they’ll lose their jobs next week; you should let your employees know how your company is doing and what its strategy is so your employees can foresee when those layoffs may occur.

Consider the following example. My client had a division that was in a poor financial situation. This division had been losing money for several years in a row. Both short- and long-term outlooks appeared to be unpromising. The firm had decided to sell this division to a competitor.

As a result of this sale, most employees would get laid off. Being the biggest advocate of transparency, the CEO of this firm communicated financial results and his intents to all employees across all divisions. Financial performance had been shared with all employees every single year the firm had been in existence. This CEO discussed his vision, mentioned the bleak outlook, the risks, and what he intended to do to remediate any problems. He mentioned that the scope of the problem was this division alone. He timely reported on every decision and every outcome. He asked employees to stick with him to make the company work, but he also mentioned he’d understand if employees looked for other jobs. He promised to pay extra to those who stuck around. While this approach didn’t make employees happy, it created an opportunity for the most income-sensitive people to look for jobs while they continued to work for the firm. They smoothly transitioned to their new jobs. Those who were less income-sensitive or entrepreneurial stayed with the firm and got a nice severance package when they were eventually laid off.

No one had a feeling of betrayal. Everyone believed the CEO and his teams were doing everything possible to save their division. Those who cared about money left early enough that it didn’t become an aggravation. People felt respected because there was no element of surprise. Uncertainty about the future didn’t matter as much because people were still gainfully employed when they found out about future layoffs, giving them enough time to find another job.

This firm didn’t have to worry about time bombs, disgruntled employees, or destroyed brands either. These types of problems happen when people think of ways to get revenge for something the firm did to them. But there was nothing to revenge for. They could clearly see that the firm tried its best to keep these employees and even promised generous severance packages to those affected. There was no rumor mill. The employees appreciate the honesty of management.

We’ll discuss the other three next columns


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