Redundancies impact more than just the person who is told their job is no longer required. Anyone who has been impacted or knows someone who has been impacted would know that there is a mental and emotional toll on the individual who has been made redundant, but what about others within the organisation. For many players within an organisation, redundancy can be a traumatic and very emotional experience. From those in the team who may feel a mix of emotions, from relief, sadness to guilt, to the leaders, whereby letting go of great talent is a bitter pill to swallow.
The impact on leaders
For many leaders, the impact of COVID on their business has meant they have had to make some tough decisions about how to cut costs to improve their bottom line. Redundancies has been a lever that many companies have had to face and action. For the leaders within the business, this is not always an easy process. From those making decisions on who stays and who goes, to the leader who has to deliver the message to impacted employees. A leader may question the legitimacy of the redundancy, whether its corporate bullying or may feel for the individual’s involved personally understanding the impact of the decision on their personal and family life. For these leaders, they intellectually know that this is a decision based on numbers and metrics, and is business, but emotionally may not agree or like the decisions being made. What is the emotional and psychological impact on these leaders?
A concept called Moral Injury is certainly relevant here. Originally discussed in relation to wars where soldiers are faced with moral and ethical dilemmas and may have to act in ways that contradict their own morals. “Moral injury refers to the lasting emotional, psychological, social, behavioural, and spiritual impacts of actions that violate a service member’s core moral values and behavioural expectations of self or others” (Litz et al., 2009). This psychological concept describes an experience whereby an individual suffers distressing psychological, emotional, behavioural outcomes from having to make decisions, act and behave in ways OR witness behaviours that go against the individual’s values or moral beliefs (US Department of Veteran Affairs). Not just confined to the battle field, sometimes individual’s in corporate and non-corporate settings may find themselves in traumatic, unusual or stressful situations whereby they perpetrate, witness or fail to prevent certain events that contradict their beliefs, morals or ethical codes of conduct (think high profile financial services scandals). The risk of moral injury is certainly something that organisations should be considering and account for as they enact downsizing. Have organisations considered in their redundancy strategy how their leaders are being supported having to make these decisions and deliver the challenging and emotional messages.
The impact on work mates
For those who remain in a business after redundancies are executed, the initial relief of keeping one’s job may be overshadowed by guilt that they have been “saved” over many of their colleagues that were chosen to exit the organisation. The emotional reaction felt by those who remain in the organisation has been referred to as Survivors Guilt. Some employees may be troubled by thoughts such as “why am I safe, but they aren’t?” or “how am I going to face my friend knowing that I am safe and they aren’t”. Not knowing what to say is a common response to dealing with anyone that suffers a loss, and communicating with a colleague and friend who has lost their job is no different.
Survivors guilt may also be fueled by a sense of injustice that the exercise of redundancy has not been fair or transparent. “Survivors” may feel a deep sense of injustice if they feel that those chosen for redundancy have not been treated well which can impact on trust, motivation and loyalty to the organisation.
The organisational impact
It’s important not to assume that once those who have been chosen to exit the organisation have left, that everyone breathes a huge sigh of relief and can “just get on with it”. The effects can be felt for days, weeks, even months. Not surprisingly ill handled redundancies can often see fractures in the organisation including a decrease in engagement and motivation, a loss of trust and a decrease in productivity. “Disengagement is one of the leading after-effects of layoffs and leads to a workforce of the walking dead,” Jenna Goudreau (Forbes, 2009).
Some employees may be anxious and worry that the redundancies were the first of many to come. These feelings may be temporary and it’s important that leaders acknowledge these feelings along with the feelings associated with the loss of beloved teammates. It is also important that feelings of guilt are acknowledged and normalised. It is easy to assume that those who remain will feel grateful that they have been saved and will work harder to prove their value to the business, however it is not unusual, if not expected that productivity will drop following a redundancy. The reallocation of work may lead survivors to feeling overworked, resentful and not valued. Companies need to factor in how these workers are supported to take on their new responsibilities or offer them coaching or training to take them on. Being open, transparent and honest about the change in resources and responsibilities whilst acknowledging the extra effort that is required to often fill the gaps is important to reestablish a new psychological contract with those who remain in the business. This psychological contract is important for trust, loyalty, and engagement.
Leaders should look out for any signs and behaviours of survivor guilt from the team or where they might be struggling with the change. These include increased absence, low tolerance or feeling disgruntled about taking on extra work, reduced performance, increased conflict and stress. The diagram depicted outlines some things to look out for.
Sadly, those left behind (leaders and their teams) are often forgotten in redundancies with financial resources, communications and company focus being on those who have been displaced. The same focus and resources are not provided for those left behind or instead the reminder that employees can access their employee assistance program if they need support. But is this enough? Are organisation’s exercising their duty of care and due diligence to all their employees during a redundancy? These questions are certainly relevant and topical in this current climate and all organisations should be factoring these two psychological concepts and impact into their redundancy strategy, risk management and implementation plans. If they don’t then it might just be possible that they will see a spike in workers compensation claims for psychological injury, increased absenteeism, decreased engagement (increased turnover) and poor productivity outcomes.
References:
Goudreau, J. (2009). Survivor Employees: What You Need To Know. Forbes.com Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/2009/12/09/layoff-survivor-stress-guilt-forbes-woman-well-being-employees.html#5bbaa6811b0b
Litz, B. T., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W. P., Silva, C., et al. (2009). Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy. Clinical Psychology Review, 29(8), 695–706.
'Moral Inury' Us Department of Veteran Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/cooccurring/moral_injury.asp
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