Cynosura

We are told that the economy is moving out of recession and that things will start to get better this year. Nevertheless unemployment is running at around 2.5 million and is expected to grow in the early months of this year. Whilst unemployment continues to rise, there has been an increase in the number of mergers and acquisitions taking place.

The hostile bid for Cadbury by Kraft is just one example, but there are lots of smaller acquisitions taking place. Whether it is redundancies due to downsizing or as a result of mergers, the focus tends to be on those who have been made redundant. The one group who are rarely, if ever, considered are those who are left behind – the survivors. Most people automatically assume that the survivors are the lucky ones. After all they escaped redundancy and therefore they must be lucky.

In many workplaces the opposite seems more appropriate. There are four emotions that hit survivors in a redundancy situation.

• Relief about still having a job. This can lead to a sense of euphoria and possibly celebration. That is very often an early stage in the process as survivors see their colleagues being given the news.
• But that can quickly turn into guilt. “Should I be celebrating when poor old Ravi has gone, and what about Mary, she was in tears when she left. It was heartbreaking.” The guilt factor cannot be underestimated, especially when those who have been made redundant linger on in the workplace for some time after the announcement.
• Guilt can linger for some time, but then those people who are leaving or who have left tell the survivors about their redundancy package. Where the employer has been as generous as possible this can often lead to a feeling of envy. “Typical isn’t it. They walk off with a great big lump sum that they can put in the bank and we are the ones that are left to pick up the pieces.”

If the redundancy announcements are handled badly and if the subsequent communications do not give hope to the survivors then the workplace can become a pretty torrid place to be. Resentment and guilt are often still around in equal measure when ‘those who left’ meet up with their old colleagues for after work drinks. The desire to keep in contact by both sides, those made redundant and the survivors is strong.

Typically those that have left put a happy face on the situation and talk up their prospects. In some cases they may have secured good new jobs, in other cases they will talk about interviews coming up and positive conversations held. In return they will ask if ‘so-and-so’ is still there – “so they didn’t manage to get rid of him then”.  The impression left is one where the survivors have fared worst out of the situation.

• Finally the resentment sets in. Once the redundancies have taken place the work environment changes. If the cuts have been dramatic then the survivors may find themselves working in half empty offices or surrounded by empty workstations. They may find that they are sitting at ‘Jennifer’s old desk’. Worse still, the senior management may well expect them to cover the exact same amount of work as the previously larger teams. So their workload goes up. All too often the stress factor is increased further if the survivors are faced with a merger as well. The merger could be an internal reshuffle as a result of downsizing or it could be part of a merger with a previous competitor. When this happens the problems seem even worse. Not only do they feel the loss of their old colleagues, but they are expected to work within new teams that may well have faced the same problems.

Inevitably there will be culture clashes as one side attempts to be the dominant partner (a merger of equals never quite happens).

One team will be expected to move into new offices occupied by the survivors of the other team. Typically there can be resentment on the part of the team that has been moved. They may be expected to occupy the workstations of people who left the other team. There may even be some conflict around who sits where, with the team in situ ‘bagging’ the best workstations.

Then there will be concerns about the work to be undertaken. Where two people from converging teams do similar jobs there may be conflict over who does what. When new job descriptions are handed down there may be further problems – however much consultation takes place. Inevitably, where there are two people doing similar work there will also be heightened tension that one will be made redundant; so the fear of redundancy will linger on for some time to come.

Productivity will be an inevitable victim whilst all the turmoil takes place. This in turn can lead to increased attempts by managers to control what is happening, which in turn causes a vicious cycle of resentment and lack of trust.

Whilst all this is taking place morale will be hard to maintain. If they haven’t already left, those employees who survived the first redundancies may decide to take voluntary redundancy (if it is on offer) or may go out and seek another job. So increased turnover of staff will add to the instability of newly merged teams.

There are many more issues around downsizing and mergers, especially if handled badly by managers and where there has been little or no communication. Communication tends to be forgotten in the change process, however loud the Internal Comms & HR practitioners might shout. In this discussion paper we would like to encourage debate around two areas; the difficulties experienced and best practices that really worked. If you are:

• An HR or Internal Communications professional who has gone through a recent change process then we would like to hear from you
• Or if you are a survivor of a redundancy process or merger then we would like to hear your stories too.

Questions we are keen to see answered include:

• What difficulties (especially communications) did you experience either as a professional trying to manage the process or as a team member experiencing change?
• What might have been done differently?
• Were there any good practices (especially communications) that took place that helped you either as a professional managing the process or as team member experiencing change?

You may have other observations you wish to share with us – in which case we would love to hear them.