Survivor syndrome and outplacement

Redundancies are becoming more common. Construction businesses, especially house builders, have made significant job cuts at a time when skills shortages continue to hurt the industry.

Many employers facing redundancies choose to embark on an outplacement programme, often employing an outplacement consultant to provide an independent perspective. Before engaging any consultant it is suggested that you clarify certain points as follows:

• Does the consultant offer generic advice or tailor it to the needs of the local or business market?
• How much one-to-one support is offered in addition to group sessions?
• Does the consultant simply advise on CV design or actually help with their production?
• Can the consultant show an example of an information pack they have supplied to leavers elsewhere?
• Do they provide emotional support or just practical advice?
• Do they provide career planning advice or just job-finding tips?
• Will a named representative be provided who can be contacted, sometimes out of hours, to deal with queries?
• What are their own objectives?

Most organisations believe that the more proactive and tailored the support the better. The objectives of the outplacement consultant should include minimising staff turnover (amongst remaining staff), improving productivity and providing adequate support and advice to leavers.

Typically, an outplacement consultant provides the following information:

• Likely sources of future employment
• Feasibility of part-time work, job sharing or self-employment
• Tax considerations
• Skills gaps
• Where training can be accessed
• How to prepare application forms and CVs and write covering letters
• How to utilise social networking sites and which ones are most appropriate
• Dos and don’ts when attending interviews
• Dos and don’ts when negotiating salary and benefits
• How to contact a prospective employer on a speculative basis
• How to effectively manage relationships with recruiters
• How to achieve work-life balance
• How financially viable an option retirement is

Often he or she will tackle career development and how to make it work on an individual basis, whilst also providing a counselling service that tackles low self-esteem.

Obviously the quality of the service received will vary. An area that is often overlooked is the 'survivor syndrome'. This refers to the group of people who together will determine whether the organisation is a success after the cuts have been made. The reason they are survivors is that they are felt to be key to the future, yet they are also likely to be seen as very attractive to competitors seeking fresh talent. This group of staff may find that they feel they need to work harder and longer hours to accommodate the loss of their former colleagues. They may also need to adapt to a new reporting structure, have additional workload and have to deal with new ways of working.

In addition, they may believe that they should not have been selected to stay, possibly because those made redundant included friends with greater financial commitments or perhaps who were older so have less chance of securing an alternative position. They may fear that they may be part of a next round of redundancies.

Questions that ‘survivors’ may ask include:

• How fair was the decision to make some people redundant?
• What considerations were taken into account?
• Could the redundancies have been avoided?

If the ‘survivors’ are not happy with the process, lingering resentment can occur and manifest itself in a number of ways. Absenteeism may increase, levels of employee engagement may fall, productivity may decline, customer service may suffer and the employer brand could be tarnished. What may have been an employer of choice can quickly become an employer of last resort.

In our experience we recommend the following action is taken:

Spell out what is needed - Treat people as adults when explaining what is needed moving forward, ensuring all parties concerned that their contribution is now more important than ever.

Speak to recruiters – New faces may be needed to provide fresh attitudes, skills and experience that maintains continuity and prevents stress/overload for the survivors.

Accentuate the positive - Explain that downsizing was essential for the organisation to remain competitive. Emphasise WIIFM (what’s in it for me) from the employee’s perspective, focusing on what will be gained from being a more stable operation rather than what has been lost in terms of colleagues. Examples may include the potential to acquire new skills and take on additional responsibility.

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate - What is not said can potentially be more damaging than what is said. An open/honest environment allows constructive feedback and revised responsibilities/goals to be communicated.

Communication before, during and after should be comprehensive and both top-down and bottom-up. No end-date should be set. Line managers and supervisors need training for tackling what are often very delicate situations whilst keeping morale and teamwork at a high level. Reassurance is a key requirement of this phase, recognising that an individual approach may be necessary to tailor the level of support on a bespoke basis.

An example: immediately following the Troubles in Northern Ireland, fewer prison officers were required at the high-security Maze Prison. Prison officers were given the opportunity to seek voluntary redundancy, and in the event more applications were received than were required. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that a large number of the applications received were from the key talent in the prison, namely the most experienced and senior individuals.

A decision was made to promote new staff in the organisation. The intention was to motivate junior officers by providing opportunities to obtain additional responsibility at an age and with a length of service that would not previously have led to such a promotion. Considerable training had to be arranged and the change in the religious diversity of the workforce had to be handled with sensitivity. It was hoped that these measures would result in a reduction in attrition, and this objective was achieved. However success came at a cost. The 1,300 redundancies cost the taxpayer £147 million - £113,000 per redundancy.

Finally, some tips for a successful outplacement programme include:

• The core HR team, who may not have previously experienced making redundancies, require support, and could face some difficult situations. Training, counselling and telephone helplines may prove helpful.
• Establish some precise measures that can be quantified, such as the number of employees that find new positions within a set timescale.
• Publicise success stories, such as people obtaining more senior positions than they previously held or setting up a business that marries their hobby with their work, via blogs, newsletter or intranet systems.

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