Employee engagement
has been one of the key themes that we have been exploring in this blog (see Employee
engagement and the story of the Sky Maiden, Passion
for work and anasakti, The
curious case of the object and subject of employee engagement, Appropriate
measures for organizational commitment , The
series on salary negotiations and psychological contract , Architects
of meaning & Of
owning and belonging for some of the examples). In this post, let’s look at
employee engagement in the case of survivors of corporate restructuring/downsizing
exercises(who often suffer from the so called ‘workplace survivor syndrome’
with symptoms like anxiety, depression, decrease in performance, poor morale and
increased propensity to leave)
At the heart of
the survivor syndrome lies two emotions- guilt (“I didn't deserve to survive
when my friends didn't”) and fear (“Next time, it could be my turn”). So, when
it comes to employee engagement, the organization's best response is to help
the survivors to deal with these emotions so that while the scars can't be
erased, productivity can be restored to a great extent.
Guilt can be
reduced by convincing the survivors that they deserved to survive (e.g. by
following a transparent process for restructuring and for identifying the employees
to be separated) and by ensuring that the employees who were separated have
been well taken care of(e g. by providing a generous separation package & adequate
transition support).
Fear can be
addressed to some extent by publicly communicating (if possible) that the staff
cuts have been completed and there is no such possibility in the foreseeable
future. Providing the survivors the opportunity to receive psychological counseling/
stress management training with a focus on coping strategies can also help. Of course, constant
communication with the employees at all levels that addresses the stated and
unstated concerns has to be continued. Another type of fear is regarding increased
workloads and new skill sets required. This can be addressed through careful work
planning and capability building. People managers can be trained to look for
signs of stress in the employees and to manage the employees in a supportive
manner. Of course, any tendency among the people manages to use the residual fear
to drive productivity ('blackmailing' employees to work harder) should be curbed.
What is perhaps
irreversible from the employee engagement point of view (especially for the next
few years) is that the employer- employee relationship moves to a purely
rational plane (whereas most definitions of employee engagement include the
aspect of deep emotional connect that the employees have to the organization). This
is because, layoffs are often perceived as a breach of the psychological
contract. This would be more so in those organizations that have been
communicating messages like ‘our company is one big family’ to the employees.
This would mean
that, after the restructuring, companies would have to rely more heavily on rational
means to retain and motivate employees (e.g. highly competitive salaries & performance-linked incentives, gain sharing schemes etc.) as well as investment in capability building to
ensure 'employability'. Yes, the emotional connect can drive discretionary effort
and lead to remarkable (business) results. But, organizations should engage the
emotions of the employees only if they are willing to look at employee
engagement as a relationship (and not as a tool) and are willing to reciprocate
(in terms of going out of the way to care for the employees, beyond what the
employment contract requires)!
