Posted: Monday 17 May 2010
When M.A. lost her job in the financial sector in November of last year, she blamed herself and not the recession. Despite many years of commitment and loyalty, a near perfect attendance record, and a history of glowing performance reviews, M.A. felt as if she wasn’t good enough at her job to avoid redundancy.
Although she was one of over 150 people to have been made redundant in her division, and the job cuts were not a personal reflection on her or her teammates, M.A. remains full of self doubt and worry about her future. It struck me as she told me her story that her employer had clearly done little to ensure that she left their employ feeling valued, and thanked, for her decade-long contribution. Instead, M.A. is finding it difficult to find another job, which she believes is directly linked to her lowered sense of self esteem: “If they’d told me that [my job loss] wasn’t my fault, I might have felt more able at this stage. As it stands, I feel useless, stupid...not worth [my old employer] holding on to”.
Economic recession is not, thankfully, the standard state of affairs in the UK. However, the fact that recession is not a constant means that many employers don’t know how to support their staff when they themselves might never have experienced economic downturn. In my role as a corporate wellbeing consultant, I’ve witnessed many managers struggle with keeping their teams engaged and motivated when they themselves feel stressed, vulnerable and anxious. It is all too easy to forget that managers are human too, and are likely to be as worried about their jobs as are the people they manage.
It remains that the human cost of the recession is often forgotten when other, bottom line, considerations are raised. The need to cut jobs may be an unavoidable economic imperative but how this news is communicated and how remaining staff are supported is perhaps the most important part of “managing through recession”. Even after those made redundant have left, “survivors” may grapple with feelings of guilt that they themselves have remained in post while valued colleagues have not; they may also find themselves working harder with fewer resources, and may become hyper-vigilant in measuring their own performance harshly, fearing that they too will be the next to go.
D.P., who has remained with his employer despite massive job cuts both this year and last, recently explained “I have to work twice as hard for the same money, but I shouldn’t complain...at least I have a job. I’m just not sure how much longer I can keep doing this. Working 15 hour days and most weekends – is it really worth it?” Other people report cuts to their working hours or salary – as we know, some companies have even offered staff the chance to work a reduced week in lieu of redundancy. As preferable to redundancy as this option might seem, 51% of people who had experienced a drop in salary or cut in their hours said they had experienced symptoms of depression, while nearly half reported anxiety and stress symptoms, according to the Guardian.
The issue remains that everyone has been affected by the recession – whether they’ve lost jobs or not. Employers who take the wellbeing of their staff seriously may find that, despite difficult decisions to be made, employees who are supported appropriately and mindfully can face an enormous amount of stress and come through the other side more resilient – and committed – than ever before.
Andrea Woodside, wellbeing consultant and Mind trustee
I agree that employers should do more to help and protect their staff in these difficult times, I speak from experience due to excessive work pressures and targets in addition to personal difficulties I suffered a breakdown and then found myself in depression, the first time I had ever felt like this, I found myself thinking of suicide on the way to work and shutting myself away to cry, in the end with the pressure of redundancies I went ahead and took voluntary after 18 years loyal service, I had little or no support from my line managers they still expected 'results'. It took me nine months on benefits to regain positivity and seek work again. This has worked out well for me now as I work in mental health and I feel so rewarded in this field, when I look back I think I should have given myself time, certainly if I had had the support things would probably be different, but when it comes to mental health, companies don't care they just see profit.
Having suffered from 1 episode of breakdown in the past, with the pressure of a new job with a new employer, and the background presence of my partner's redundancy from a company he had been with for 20 years, I experienced a relapse. I am now on my 4th month of 'garden leave' from my role, with the prospect of a imposed 'reasonable adjustments' in the pipeline. Great. How demoralising. What gets my goat more than anything is the approach taken by organisations in this climate of risk management. Managed out of existence are the creative solutions that allow individuals to prove they are 'stress hardy' - commitment, control and challenge.
Employers are losing out.
I am trying to cover three jobs as we have not got the staff and my progression plan has been put on hold. When i expressed my fears and the pressure of working so hard and feeling like I am becoming behind on my progression plan my manager's manager pulled me in to a back room and told me "I don't know why you are complaining, at the end of the day you have a job and that's all that matters"
The economic crisis has been one big excuse for all employers to bleed their staff dry and threaten redundancy if people complain.
"Economic recession is not, thankfully, the standard state of affairs in the UK"
I think this is something we may need to get used to unfortunately. From a green economic perspective, inflation will steadily rise due to the coming energy crisis, hindering any economic recovery significantly.
How does this effect us? We desperately need to share work out, less hours and more people in work. See New Economics Foundation report 21 hours at http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/21-hours
We need to disassociate skill from hard work. Skill doesn't cause stress! Hard work, long hours, ridiculous deadlines causes severe stress. You don't need to work hard to do skilled work.
We need to promote "working well" instead of "working hard".
We also need to recognise work outside paid work, such as caring for children, elderly, disabled and for ourselves. Managing our own mental health is work!
We need to perceive ourselves as who we are as human beings rather than what we do at work.
My workplace has banned the use of mobile phones apart from lunch times. If we nees to send a test we have to ask permission and tell the manager who it is for. My daughter has panic attacks and I usually support her through text messages. I am not albe to do this affectively now. Is this legal? Is this too intrusive. This new policy among others feels like punishment for unrelated issues within the team over the past few months
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