Downsizing is a painful process. Sure, those who are let go feel the pain and fear associated with the unknown, but what about those who stay with the company? They should feel great, right? After all, they still have their job, no uncertainty there. They were chosen to remain so things should be great for them, right? Not so on both accounts.
A person who remains with a company after a downsizing may have feelings ranging from guilt to the same kind of grief as is felt with the death in their community. There will also most likely be feelings of anger, cynicism as well as a sense of helplesness and a reduction of loyalty to the company. These feelings are on top of the added stress of picking up the work of those who were let go.
Why do people feel these things when they should logically not feel anything? After all, shouldn't the most important thing be the money we make? If you are one of these people and are experiencing these feelings, you are experiencing what has been called "Survivor Sickness."
Factors to consider
The way a person feels after a downsizing is more or less influenced by their view of the nature of work, their sense of community, their support system, and how well the company finances respond.
The nature of work
Research indicates that work can be categorized into the job, the career, and the calling. For those people who view their work as a job, the most important thing to them is that they are getting paid for the services they provide. They receive fulfillment in other ways - ways that can be bought with the money they earn. These people could possibly have the easiest time going through a downsizing since they are the most detached from their work. This possibly could change depending on the nature of their community.
Career oriented people are more interested in self-fulfillment through their work. This comes in the form of promotions and the learning process they go through. These people will have a more difficult time since they tend to define themselves by their work.
Those who view their work as a calling, tend to be interested in the greater good of society and believe they have a specific responsibility to help to improve society through their work. People in this category will most likely have the most difficult time since they are fully immersed in their work, identity and all.
Community
It has only been fairly recent that research on community shifted its focus from community being a geographic location such as the neighborhood to studying what the elements of community are. What they found out was that a sense of community can develop just about anywhere. They discovered that what you felt was more important than where you were. They named this concept the psychological sense of community.
The key elements to community were, membership, influence, fulfillment of needs, and, shared emotional connection. Membership is understood as having a sense of belonging. For example, belong to or a part of the neighborhood in which your house is located. The same can be said about the department you work in at work, or the company you work for. Influence is about frienships and power within the community.
To be a part of a community, you feel that you need to somehow contribute to that community. However at the same time, you will gain benefit from that community. In the community, there will be leaders and followers. Overall, you will enjoy being a part of that community as long as you feel you are contributing and you are gaining some benefit from being a member.
It soon became apparent that community could exist anywhere. Now, social networking creates cyber communities that to a large extent have replaced the neighborhood as the community. Work also would have a tendency to replace the neighborhood as the community since that is where people spend most of their waking hours. They develop friendships there, and have a sense of belonging. Additionally, work can be very fulfilling.
It is possible that the stronger the sense of community, the more painful the impact of the downsizing, however, it is also possible that, if the downsizing does not destroy the sense of community, the stronger the sense of community, the easier it will be to find the kind of social interaction that will help to soften the pain of downsizing.
Support Systems
People are social creatures. To be productive in society, they need to be able to accept help from others as well as give help to others. In a downsizing, people will be hurting. If there is no relationships built within the organization, then there will need to be good relationships somewhere outside of the organization. Family and friends are important in the process of healing.
Another consideration is one's belief in God. Depending on one's orientation to God, they may find comfort in seeking a loving and personal God. On the other hand, if one's view of God is that He is more judgmental and exacting as opposed to loving and personal, seeking God will be of little help.
What to do
If you find yourself a survivor of a downsizing, there are some things you can do to help yourself. First, recognize that you will be emotionally affected. You may not recognize it but it is there. To help with this, seek out your most trusted friends and do not be afraid to talk about how you feel and go over the details of what happened. Talking it out is a big help. Second, find ways to boost your attitude. It will not help you to have a poor attitude. Forget about the organization, you are the one trying to survive. Being down on the organization's leadership doesn't help you and doesn't hurt them. Third, work through the new organizational structure by recognizing that you, and your co-survivors will go through two processes; grief recovery, and reforming of the work community. You can find information about grief recovery on the web by looking for the Kubler-Ross model of the stages of grief recovery and for the reforming of the community by searching for Tuckmans stages of group development.
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