HRD delves into the psychology of making someone redundant
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the news headlines have been dominated by terms such as ‘job losses’, ‘staff cuts’ and ‘redundancies’.
It was recently announced that The Warehouse Group will make about 600 people redundant due to a restructure proposed in July, impacting 92 stores throughout the country.
The Warehouse Group justified the redundancies by saying its sales had plunged 67% or $265m during the nationwide lockdown period.
It was also recently made public that Air New Zealand will be letting go 385 more cabin crew by December. This took its COVID-19 related job losses to around 37% of its workforce.
The percentage was higher than the cuts to nearly 30% of jobs at Australia's Qantas Airways and around 20% at Singapore Airlines.
The airline announced 4,000 job losses before the latest proposal to cut cabin crew.
A slowdown in the recovery of air travel and a fall in demand for the airline’s American routes was what reportedly prompted the further round of job cuts.
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With many large and small organisations around New Zealand also having to let workers go during the pandemic, it has put the spotlight firmly on HR.
For many HR professionals, breaking such difficult news to workers can be a traumatic experience, particularly when it impacts many people who have been long-serving employees.
In fact, often the experience can be just as horrible for the person letting the employee go - especially if they know them quite well, according to medical practitioner Dr Jenny Brockis.
“At this time, making someone redundant might make it very difficult for them to find another job due to the current economic situation,” she said.
“I think it is really important that the person who is delivering the bad news has got someone to talk to, whether it is a key colleague or somebody at home.”
Dr Brockis said that when people are in this situation they may feel emotions such as guilt, sadness and anxiety.
“I think we need to acknowledge the emotions that we feel which are very real,” she said.
“We are human, and we don’t like causing other people pain. And, of course, letting someone go can cause a lot of pain,” she said.
It’s also about being aware that you have responsibility to the people remaining to ensure that everybody is feeling OK and addressing any worries or uncertainty.
“Because we get survivor’s guilt and if we are one of the people left in the team, we can have that feeling of ‘why was so and so chosen and not me?’”
Survivor’s guilt occurs when a person believes they have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic or tragic event when others did not, often feeling self-guilt.
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There is some research which suggests that when restructures and redundancies are announced, there can be an increase in performance, as individuals try to demonstrate their worth in the hope of retaining their jobs.
However, this can be short-lived as worry and uncertainty soon take hold.
If not addressed, anxieties can build throughout a company’s remaining workforce, resulting in a decline in staff motivation and productivity.
Employees might think, ‘oh my god, now they have gone I have all this extra work to do’, said Dr Brockis.
“So I think the leader needs to get their mind around how to best support other people to ensure they are not left in a state of overwhelm themselves, because they have been caught up with extra work that they have been expected to pick up.”