Retrenching Helpfully

I retrieved the newspaper from under the door of my hotel room. The headline announced a ‘Bloody third quarter’ with another one million jobs lost. Later that morning, in the auditorium of a large corporation, I looked out at a sea of unknown, grey, disbelieving faces as they were told they were losing their jobs as part of a merger. The valiant efforts and upbeat positivity of the HR team, together with their offer of assistance with CVs, seemed weak in the face of their disbelief and shock. Many of them had not job hunted for many years and had no idea where to start. It was the beginning of my mission to help people who were losing their jobs through no fault of their own.

Now, almost twenty years later, I read the same headlines with different words, different stats, but the same message. Retrenchments have become a regular and standard practice among even the most historically stable employers in the world.

In the meantime, the nature of jobs has changed, job hunting has changed, and many more people are having to consider self-employment. Many well-intentioned interventions ignore the huge emotional turmoil that comes with losing your job, and often provides little practical help in the lonely and often challenging job of finding work.

The message I get most often from aggrieved employees is ‘It’s not what they did, but how they did it!’ Maya Angelou famously said: ‘People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’ Many employers are doing the best they can, they simply don’t know what else to do to help.

Working with individuals and organisations across industries, I have discovered some things that work better than others. The good news is you don’t have to spend huge amounts of money to do better, here are some things I’ve learned along the way I hope will help you.

Embracing the spirit of the law

There is an old story of a preacher who was given a bottle of cherry brandy by a member of his congregation, on the condition that he thank the giver from the pulpit. And so, on the Sunday morning, he stands up and thanks Mr so-and-so for the cherries, but specially for the spirit in which they were given.

You can follow the letter of the law and still miss the spirit of the law, leaving people feeling aggrieved and hopeless. The spirit of the law is to be transparent and fair, then doing whatever you can to avoid, minimise and mitigate the adverse effects of these ‘no-fault’ terminations. This is not a process for firing people for incapacity or poor performance, there are adequate processes for dealing with that. The basis for job loss is that the job has ceased to exist, or at least in its current form.

Processes for recruiting and ‘onboarding’ people are well oiled in organisations, yet terminating employment of these same people, through no fault of their own, can end up being mechanical and lacking in empathy. A badly run process goes like this: Don’t tell anyone until you have worked this out and have a strong case to win. Use the process to get rid of poor performers, or people that get under your skin, by carefully managing the selection criteria. Ask people for ideas only because you have to, but with little or no intention of changing your mind. Pay them out the minimum prescribed by law and offering no other assistance than what is required. An even worse process shared with me was calling the senior team into the Board Room and announcing: ‘Here’s the new structure. If your name is not there, you know you’re out!’

I have heard rationalisations like: ‘This will be such a quick cut, people will hardly notice, and we’ll be back on track’. ‘Pay what it takes to make this go away.’ ‘Let HR handle this, that’s what they are there for’. Except the problem doesn’t go away, and often there is resentment many years down the track which can so easily be resolved up front.

How you manage retrenchments matters. It stays with those who leave and sends a strong message about the culture of the organisation to those who stay. Dealing with the aftermath of retrenchments is as important as helping those who are directly impacted.

Communicating with empathy

Communication is essential, not just that you do it, but how you do.

  1. Communicate to all staff at the beginning of the process, not just those whose jobs are affected. Do auditorium or online sessions that include everyone. It resolves a lot of corridor talk, a standoff by people who feel awkward to talk to those who may be leaving, and makes it very clear how you will help those who are directly affected. Retrenchment in an organisation affects everyone in some way, so share what you are doing, why you are doing it and how you will support those who are affected as soon as you can. Rumours and misinformation spread fast. When you communicate with everyone there is only one version of why this is happening. How you handle this sends a very clear message about your values and lets everyone know how they will be treated if they are affected in the future.
  2. Get someone from Senior Management to address staff as part of this process, this is not an HR responsibility alone but rather a change process initiated by and for the business
  3. Genuinely consider ideas from people about how they can work differently to achieve the organisation’s objectives while minimising job loss where possible. This is not difficult to do and does not in any way limit your decision once you have considered them
  4. Help all staff deal with the emotional turmoil that comes with losing a job, their colleagues, a familiar structure and their team. It also means changing their belief that nothing will ever change. There is often an awkwardness around those who are affected. When everyone understand the process, people are free to assist and support each other where they can.
  5. Help management who are directly involved deal with their own levels of stress and support them throughout the process. I have been involved in many retrenchments where the staff accepted the bad news, but members of the management ended up needing very real support.
  6. Help those who are leaving to consider what they will do next and how they will begin their own job hunt. Alternatives create hope, so you will want to help them create not only work alternatives but alternative job-hunting strategies. CVs have the lowest success rate in the world of job hunting, so on its own sets well-meaning job hunters up for failure.
  7. Provide a support system for a reasonable period of time if you can. This may mean access to a few desks, and office equipment, or a meeting place where job hunters can check-in and get assistance from each other or someone in the organisation
  8. Help those who are left behind to refocus their energy. It is often evident that those left behind need more help than those who have left. They are left with uncertainty, survivor guilt, often increased workload, low energy levels and sometimes lack of focus. The result can be low productivity and unfinished emotional business. I have often had to deal with more negativity from those who are left behind than those who have lost their jobs and left.
  9. Tell people the truth when you contemplate retrenchment. Organisations sometimes withhold bad news to be kind or because they think people may not be able to handle it now. These are people who have been married, divorced, lost parents, lost children, survived car accidents. I believe we undermine the dignity of people by withholding information they may not want to hear or have difficulty dealing with. It also happens to make business sense. I worked with an organisation who announced retrenchments in December. We proceeded to do a ‘roadshow’ before Christmas. We helped people understand the decision to restructure, we talked about the turmoil they may experience, we explained how we would be helping those who, through no fault, may lose their jobs. The cost of providing this support was insignificant alongside what they wanted to achieve as an organisation. With this kind of honesty, generosity and business focus, their turnaround as a business was astounding.
  10. Involve people authentically in the consultation process. Use their ideas where you can. Where you can’t, tell them. They may have great ideas being closer to the job. And if not, it helps them makes sense of the decisions that affect them. In the consultation process, don’t only focus on those losing their jobs, consider spending time with your senior team and other key stakeholders.
  11. Involve all stakeholders as far as you can. I learned the hard way when our best efforts were undermined by union officials and splinter groups who believed the money that was being spent on support should rather be given to those who were losing their jobs. With the next project I insisted on speaking to members of the union before I would consider doing the work. We got such overwhelming buy in to helping people take charge of their lives, they ended up being the most vocal and active supporters in the work and conversations that followed.
  12. Acknowledge the emotional journey for people. I often hear mangers express frustration at how unhappy people are when the company has done all it could and after they have provided so much support and paid such generous packages! As if doing all those good things should somehow alleviate their anxiety. The truth is that people deal with this very differently. Greg, a senior manager tells me that he hasn’t had the courage to tell his family even though he has known for many weeks that he was losing his job. Carol tells me that losing her job was one of the most helpful things that ever happened in her life, and she is now living the life of her dreams in her own business. A man stands at the robot near where I live with a hand-written sign that reads ‘I was retrenched from…’ with the names of the company in big letters. I know the company did everything they could to help. Piet saw the glitter of gold with voluntary packages on offer and impulsively bought a franchise wholly unsuited to his skillset set or passion. He has lost his business and his confidence.  Jeremy, who has superb skills, and a perfectly crafted CV still has no work after many months and is now being treated for depression.
  13. Recognise the symptoms of loss. People get confused. Their emotions bounce around like a ball. Rationality comes and goes. The combination of confusion, numbness, anxiety, anger, anticipation, blame, guilt can seem permanent, even though they are not. But they are real. Denying this with cliches like ‘every cloud has a silver lining…’ ‘this may be a gift in your life…’ keeps everyone stuck and negative. That also applies to those left behind. I did a series of change workshops for an organisation a few years about a large retrenchment exercise. I remember by the second week of one-day events I was exhausted. Not from the work, but from the extreme negativity and resentment in the groups left over from the change process. Ignoring this only allows it to continue.
  14. Don’t ignore the turmoil that your management and HR teams may be experiencing. We were about to embark on a large downsizing exercise with a client and I received an invitation to join the executive team ‘on the river’ before the announcement on the Monday. It seemed a strange time to be spending time at leisure, but with strong leadership at the helm I was sure this was more than a party. It turned out to be one the most important parts of the process. Within minutes of our first conversation many of the team were in tears, they had no idea how to deal with this. It helped them come to terms with the decision they had made, the announcement they would make in the coming week, how they would deal with questions, how they would support those who were affected and how they would get through this together. To support the organisation, they first had to resolve this for themselves. Don’t forget to help management achieve closure.

 Empowering the journey

 I have found that there are three things that people struggle with most when facing job loss; loneliness, lack of job-hunting skills and hopelessness when nothing works. Being alone at home without work is hard. That doesn’t mean there aren’t people around, but their encouragement to send out more CVs and constant nagging to ‘get out there’ from well-meaning family members can be alienating rather than helpful.

  1. Broaden their support base. Some corporate clients have been willing to include spouses, partners or friends in workshops and it has made all the difference. As an organisation you can’t solve this on your own, but you can find ways to give people tools and support systems to help them where you can’t.
  2. Combine job groups and grades. I was working with a merger of two very different cultures in the insurance industry. A large number of jobs were at risk at different levels in the organisation and their question to me was whether we should split the groups by seniority. I suggested that since people were affected in the same way, that we invite people regardless of their income level and status in the organisation. We did a large group intervention that was both time and cost-effective. It also helped connect people with the potential of creating good energy. This was a group of nearly 100 people from all levels in the organisation. At tea-time on the first day, one of the Asset Managers who had arrived in a white Porsche approached me. ‘I just had a conversation with an elderly cleaning lady who lives in the township. It’s probably one of the most profound conversations I have had about dealing with adversity and finding hope when times were tough’. I believe that when times are tough, there is a common humanity that binds us all. The power of connecting with real people at all levels has no price.
  3. Extend this into the community. In one project, there was a public holiday in the middle of the week. I was happy to work, and the General Manager kindly agreed to employees inviting people they knew who were struggling to find work. Participants arrived in their best clothes with waves or perfume and expectant faces. I still get a lump in my throat when I think about it. The power of involving people they know increased support, enthusiasm and empathy for each other. That didn’t mean jobs were fall out of the sky, but they certainly had a better chance and it was no longer a lonely journey.
  4. Teach them how to job hunt. I see many people who are very active on social media, have great profiles, have professional CVs they have paid huge amounts of money for, have relationships with agencies that are hugely supportive, yet they remain unemployed. Some organisations may be able to offer outplacement services, which is generous. But even then, agencies only hold positions they have been paid to fill. There are many great books on job hunting, my favourite is ‘What Color is your parachute’ which is a wonderful resource. The key is to develop up to four different job-hunting methods, three CVs with different focus, maybe five ‘business cards’ or offerings and a belt-and-braces carpet weaving plan to stay with it when it gets tough.
  5. Include some sessions or individual conversations around being self-employed and running a business from home. Neither our schooling systems nor the corporate workplace provide this kind of help ordinarily. You don’t have to develop complicate business plans, they can find those elsewhere, but you do need to help those who have an idea but not sure what to do with it. I remember a small group I worked with where one of the ladies made superb milk tarts she wanted to sell from home. When we did a quick calculation of what it cost to make one, she discovered she had been selling them at a loss for years, but because she had a job never sat down to turn it into a viable business.

Providing practical support

You don’t have to take responsibility for finding jobs for those who you are no longer able to employ, but you can still be helpful to the extent that it may be practical. Here are some great ideas I have learned from clients over the years.

  1. Provide a work area for a reasonable time, where job hunters have access to phones, email, copiers and good coffee so they can connect with other job hunters.
  2. Make job hunting portals available with laptops and internet access.
  3. Run weekly group sessions where those who are actively job hunting can share strategies and contacts with each other, learn from those who are succeeding and encourage those who may not be. This is easily done online, you don’t have to set up venues to do this.
  4. Provide CV workshops rather than writing them for applicant. This not only helps them define their objective more clearly, but also allows them to create multiple versions, most people can do more than one thing.
  5. If you are able to provide outplacement, combine this with some good job-hunting methods to help the job hunter to take ownership of this process and not depend entirely on a third party to do the work for them.
  6. Run interview workshops where job hunters can interview each other and give honest feedback so they can market themselves more coherently and confidently.
  7. Encourage job hunters to measure how they are actually doing as opposed to the false sense of achievement they may feel because they have made a few calls.
  8. Arrange financial planning sessions to help those receiving packages to manage lumpsums and to review their own spending patterns while future employment is uncertain. These should be offered by advisors who have no financial interest in the decisions they make.
  9. Provide workshops or links to online workshops on starting your own business, many people are going to have to consider self-employment in a shrinking job market.
  10. Give access to books and articles that are helpful to find or create work.
  11. Provide access to computers to create brochures and web pages for those considering self-employment.
  12. Provide access to people in the organisation who may be willing to offer information on alternative job roles.
  13. Consider temporary assignments in areas that need additional short-term staff.
  14. For those left behind, fix the post- retrenchment environment. Remove desks not needed and reorganise the work area for 10 people and not 30. Consider painting the coffee area yellow. Create visible boards that help connect with the new vision and strategy of the business.

 Restoring energy in the business

Many times, those people who are left behind have more difficulty recovering that those who have left. They too have lost colleagues and a familiar team. They may now be wondering how secure their own jobs are, whether they still want to work here, whether this was entirely necessary, why they suddenly have more work than they can cope with and how the reduced headcount was a practical decision, and so on. Many say they are seriously reviewing what they want out of their careers and putting together a plan B. This is time for stronger leadership than ever, a clear vision forward and helping everyone come to terms with the changes. Here are some ways to make sure everyone is part of the journey and not the few people who were quietly let go hoping it would have no impact on anyone else.

  1. Help survivors understand the emotional change cycle and that it may take many months for them to also recover. It could take as long as 18 months to restore energy to a large business.
  2. Make the new vision visible and tangible so everyone knows where the organisation is going and why and how it plans to get there
  3. Get every division in the organisation involved in working out what they need to do specifically to realise the vision so there is an active focus going forward
  4. Avoid making commitments that this will be ‘the last restructure’ exercise. The business environment is simply too dynamic to be able to guarantee that
  5. It costs more and not less when you take short cuts. ‘Let’s just do a quick cut and reduce the pain’ is a common refrain. The cost of the time it takes to restore trust and loss of productivity can pale alongside the cost of retrenchment packages and interventions. John Maxwell said ‘You either pay now, or you pay later. But you always pay sometime’.

By having done a fair, transparent and helpful retrenchment process you will have sent a very clear message to those who are left. As an organisation you will do whatever it takes to succeed, but when jobs and roles become redundant you will then treat those who are affected with dignity and help them move forward

Facilitating the intervention

This is not a training intervention, but a change intervention that comes with some helpful tools. The way you facilitate this therefore matters if you want to get optimal buy-in and benefit. Many people are put off by training sessions and at this point, they are often too mad! You best intentions could be dashed by a ‘we know what you need’ type of sessions, run by people who are not affected but know what you should do. It’s a careful balance of help and credibility. That doesn’t mean you have to get someone from outside but choose your riders well.

  1. Choose your facilitator well. Dealing with job loss is about dealing with life, not just a job. Involve people as far as you can that have been through change, found jobs in tough times or dealt with life issues themselves. It is not fair to dump this on the new person in HR just because they have a degree in psychology. This is real world stuff that requires real world knowledge and experience. Sometimes the best people to involve are those involved in sales that have to generate their own energy, face rejection and start again tomorrow. You also don’t have to do this all yourself, there are some great YouTube videos to generate discussion, ideas and everyday inspiration.
  2. Make it active. Getting people to market what they offer can be a very energising process. We were doing a retrenchment programme in a factory environment with a hundred or more people in one room. We got people in two lines facing each other, then under some time pressure got them to verbalise what they could do for the person facing them, before shifting one place on to the next one. I took a short video on my mobile, and when I look at it now, it looks like an upbeat, raucous, and fun speed dating session, which in a way it was. Fun has a sacred dimension, but make sure it takes them somewhere rather than introducing games and activities that are fun but pointless. Get people working by doing real things, making calls, doing ‘social seat’ interviews or even informational interviews as part of the process.
  3. Integrate it with the real world as far as you can. In another project we timed the workshop at a time when employees were re-applying for positions in the organisation. That meant they had support preparing for interviews throughout the day. They went to their interviews with great encouragement from the group and many came back excited to share the news that they had got the job, with much cheering from the group. The energy and encouragement that came with sharing support and success was overwhelming.
  4. Create a fun environment in which to work with those directly affected without it being tacky. A company we were working for hired a venue on recommendation. The facilities were advertised as ‘modern’ but they were far from that. The cavernous, empty hall had old Marley tiles on the floor, the furniture looked ex-Government, the windows were dirty and through them was a view of the garbage bins. An afternoon at the local nursery, colourful cloths, bottles with colourful (not all necessary) stationery and good music helped us create an environment that made them feel special. Find the nicest space you can or work creatively with what you have. It’s not so much about the room as making people feel they matter. Because they do.
  5. Work with groups as far as you can, it shares the burden and the energy. Small groups are fine but large groups are even better. By that I mean 100 people or more. Mixed groups in terms of levels can be very powerful.
  6. Allow reflection time, there is a lot to work with here. Small group conversations, journals, drawings, questions. This is not a ‘talk and chalk’ show as we say.
  7. Use online resources. The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us how we can operate differently and often more efficiently. This will allow you to work over an extended period at minimal cost, build in reflection time and create a safe space from which people can check in. The modular approach also provides a longer period of support which is most helpful.
  8. Listen before you preach or teach. I was at the announcement where a large group of people who were losing their jobs. When asked to contribution I started talking about the change process. I cringe when I think about it now, it was unhelpful and untimely. As soon as I changed tack and asked them what they wanted to say to each other, the energy shifted and huge amounts of empathy and hope came from the group, more than anything I could have done. So get out of your own way, people have dealt with life issues before, they can do this too.

Conclusion

I am not suggesting you stop anything you may already be doing, but perhaps consider if there are ways you can do this more helpfully. It includes acknowledging and helping people accept the turmoil that comes with loss, helping those directly affected to create alternatives and transferring ownership for the job-hunting process. Share job hunting strategies, why CVs work and why they don’t and what to do about it. Test business plans of those who may be considering going it alone. Involve anyone who can provide support, including Unions. Share the power of networking and asking for help. Support and encourage when the first three, ten or seventeen interviews don’t turn into work. Don’t forget about those who are left behind and support those who have been driving this process. They too have experienced stress, loss and even guilt.

A new psychological contract

We have been framing a new psychological contract in the workplace for many years. Organisations worldwide are no longer able to guarantee a ‘job-for-life’ even if they wanted to, the working world is changing too fast. Maybe, as we all adapt to the changes, the new promise we make to employees looks like this:

A New Promise

‘Every one of you has a dream, whether it’s your next job, a personal goal, retirement, your own business one day, places you want to visit before you die, or things you want to learn.

We want to be your partner for some of the journey of your life as we strive to create value for us both, and for those we serve. We accept that your needs will change, just as ours will. Things might even change more quickly than before; the business world is too dynamic for that not to be so.

We cannot therefore offer you a lifelong relationship, or ‘job-for-life’ as we used to. Neither do we expect you to offer us that. All we ask for is a fair exchange of energy and contribution while you are here. During that time, we will offer you work that supports our business and which is also satisfying to you as far as we are able. We would like to harness your best skills, more particularly those you do well and enjoy using. After all, it makes good business sense to do so.

We understand that your needs in your 20’s may be different from your 30’s, 40’s and beyond. We also understand that with midlife comes a new energy where you may be seeking more meaning in your work and life. We would like to help you find that if we can.

We are in the business of making the world a better place and we hope you are too.  We will therefore share our business objectives and set clear standards for those things we want to achieve. We invite you also to share what is important for you so we can work together to make a difference, profitably.

We want to have an ongoing conversation about your needs and ours. If our needs change, we will let you know that. If you are not, for any reason, able or willing to provide what we need, we will do our best to resolve it with you. We accept that sometimes things just don’t work out, and it may be time to end our relationship, but that too we will do fairly and transparently.  

If, through no fault of your own, your role in this business is no longer required, we will respect you enough to be honest with you about that. We will then do what we can to help you move on with dignity and provide you with whatever support we can.

When your work is done here, we trust that you will find new places where you can add value and new ways to fulfil your dreams and make this world a better place, in your own way.’

©Andrew Bramley, 2022. All Rights Reserved.

(CCMA Retrenchment Guidelines: https://www.ccma.org.za/Services/Individual-Employee-Employer/Dealing-with-Retrenchment)

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