When reorganizations, mergers and acquisitions are accompanied by the risk of a high percentage of redundancies, the immediate effect is an important and sudden increase of basic insecurity and anxiety, emotions which undermine our rational brain.
The employees feel also very vulnerable. They often feel helpless and powerless, feelings that have a tendency to infiltrate other areas of their lives.
This insecurity and stress of the employees can have a devastating effect on morale, motivation, cooperation, quality and safety. This makes the whole company very vulnerable.
Therefore the risk of loosing ones job should be addressed directly, instead of avoiding it or pooh-poohing it with “It’s not going happen to you”, “Don’t worry, you don’t run any risk” “Why worry, you will find another job immediately”. This might sound rational, it is stupid however from an emotional point of view.
The risks should be discussed in such the way that the employees under threat regain control of their lives and realize that keeping doing their job well is the best thing they can do for themselves, even if this is good for the company that might fire them in a very near future.
This workshop addresses these feelings of anxiety and helplessness, not to complain and lament in group, but to act resilient and pro-active in the light of the potential disaster and especially to stay in control of ones own life.
The basic ingredients are
- better knowledge of stress and ways of dealing with it
- creating social support
- developing a proactive “what if” strategy
- taking control of your own future
Although the ingredients are well developed, the workshop has no pre-determined outline, because I want to start where the participants are, so that they co-determine the workshop, giving them a feeling of control in the workshop itself too.