When Jennifer Fielding describes work nowadays it sounds more like a scene
from a supernatural thriller than a typical day at the office. “You call
people's phone extensions but it just rings out because they've left the
company. People just disappear. You don't know what's happened, they just
vanish.”
Fielding works for a global property company and is based in London. Her
industry took the brunt of the credit crunch and has been haemorrhaging
people for more than a year. “I feel like I'm on borrowed time,” she says.
“If it's not me, it's someone I work with that will go next. As our team
gets smaller we get closer, but that only makes things worse. I feel so
guilty. You learn to adjust but it keeps you up at night sometimes.”
Everyone knows the story of the worker who has been “let go”. Less familiar,
though, is the story of the people left behind. The survivors. People such
as Fielding, who are still coming in to work, worrying if it's them who will
be next to go and how long they've got. And growing inside many of these
remaining employees is a creeping sense of guilt. They survived and their
colleague did not. Next to them is an empty desk, or, worse, a for-the-chop
colleague working out his or her notice.
The time between being made redundant and leaving can be minutes or months. In
between may lie a minefield of handover meetings and awkward encounters in
the staff kitchen. Leaving drinks are the worst because no one knows what to
say. “It's not like it used to be when people were going on to another job
and you could be excited for them,” Fielding says. “Everyone drinks instead
so as not to acknowledge the elephant in the room.”
Then there are the ones who keep their imminent redundancy a secret. “They
can't stand the thought of being pitied,” she says. “But the guilt is worse
when they up and leave because you feel as though you weren't there for
them.”
The Work Foundation estimates that up to 3 million of our 29 million workforce
will be unemployed by the end of this year, an increase of more than a
million on last year. Losses will be felt across virtually every industry.
Based on such forecasts, soon everyone will know someone who has been laid
off.
Guilty feelings are common, says David Sims, Professor of Organisational
Behaviour at Cass Business School in East London. “People fall in love with
their organisations, and a lot of the guilt may derive from others being
pushed out of that relationship. The more you feel your organisation is
doing something good, the more prone you are to feel guilty about others who
are no longer able to make their contribution.”
“In societies where work is everything, unemployment is devastating not just
materially but psychologically,” says Alain de Botton, the philosopher and
author of The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (Penguin, out in April). “The
loss of a job means a loss of income, but also - and no less seriously - a
loss of self-esteem and identity. The first question people ask each other
when they meet is, ‘What do you do?'; an occupation is at the heart of our
sense of who we are.”
No wonder, then, that our jobs are a main topic of conversation with work and
non-work friends alike. Consequently, when a friend is laid off we should be
prepared for the friendship to change. The moment that the friend's job ends
marks a fundamental shift, says Lucy Beresford, a psychotherapist. “If the
friendship is strong enough then it ought not to rupture its foundations.
But if you are only friends because you sit next to them, or only ever talk
to them about work, then it might well evaporate.”
Managing this new stage of a friendship depends on how well you understand and
communicate with each other (see box). “Your newly redundant friend might be
angry at you because you stayed when they didn't,” she says. “If they are
taking their frustrations out on you, you've got to be able to say to
yourself it's not about me, it's that they are having a bad time.”
Maintaining a friendship, supporting a friend, is all the more difficult if we
are burdened by guilt, but understanding this emotion is the first step to
managing it. “Survivor guilt is a defence mechanism against the deeper fear:
it could have been you. That's a very selfish perspective, so we have to
hide it,” Beresford explains.
“That's not to say people aren't genuinely feeling guilt. In
evolutionary terms it's useful because it makes you more cautious and aware
of your mortality.” Guilt tends to be felt most keenly in smaller
organisations, where the people who are going aren't just names on a global
address book but people you speak to each day, says Roger Seifert, Professor
of Human Resource Management at the University of Wolverhampton. For
example, in a small company staffed with people who started the business
together and formed strong bonds, the guilt would be very high. “When people
go it's not as dramatic as bereavement, but it's close. They might have
started these companies together and worked phenomenally hard.”
But in other workplaces, staff are less encumbered by guilt. In some City
firms there's more of a First World War culture, Seifert says. “When the
troops went over the top there'd be a mixture of guilt that you'd survived
but also an acceptance that this is the nature of the business. Even before
the financial crisis there was very high turnover in banking; it's a tough
environment. It's all about what you did today, not yesterday. That's why
it's like war: just because you missed a bullet doesn't mean you'll miss one
tomorrow.”
The guilt can feel particularly acute if it's you who is doing the sacking but
you may take comfort in knowing that it can be vital to a company's
survival. Redundancies were inevitable when Paul Washington, the managing
director of a small publishing company, had to shut one of his magazines.
Years later he still refers to the period as the “Night of the Long Knives”.
“We were a small company so I really felt it. I had to let go of good
people. I remember one guy even turned round to me and said, ‘I thought you
were my friend'.
“I had spent sleepless nights trying to find a solution but in the end I
realised the whole company would collapse if I didn't make the decision to
lay some people off. The guilt was terrible.”
Infused with the relief of surviving is a sense that we don't deserve to stay,
that we should have been the ones that went. Those with low self-esteem are
quite likely to see their self-worth and confidence further eroded by guilt,
says Dr Michael Sinclair (city-psychology.co.uk). His practice has seen an
increase in clients since the downturn because self-referrals are on the
rise.
It's simple to minimise guilty feelings. Start by challenging the critical
voice in your head, Sinclair says. “Rather than constantly telling yourself
how undeserving you are to still be at work, stop and say, It's not my fault
they were laid off'. Then think of the reasons why you are, in fact, not
such a bad person at all.” During times of financial crisis guilt can make
us more diligent at work, eager to take on further responsibility in an
attempt to protect ourselves from the next round of redundancies. It awakens
our survival instincts. In moderation this is a good thing but survivors
often succumb to presenteeism, throwing themselves into work, meetings and
late hours. Sinclair says: “We think, If I work harder then perhaps I'll
keep my job'. But it doesn't always work that way and will only cause you
additional stress. Look for things outside working life to counter low
confidence. You'll find something to remind you that you are a competent,
helpful person.”
Finally, ring-fence your guilt. “Allow yourself to think about it for a short
time then get on with your life. Watch a film, take a walk, read a book.”
Working life hasn't felt this uncertain for a generation and we will all -
employed or otherwise - be under strain this year. We can never control the
economy, or the job market, but we can control how we feel about it.
Fielding's job will be just as insecure on Monday, but how that makes her
feel is up to her.
When a friend is laid off:
When we feel guilty Saying things such as “I feel so terrible for you” is
unhelpful.
Listen and empathise instead Saying “I see that it's difficult right
now and I understand why you are feeling angry” will help your friend to
feel supported.
Avoid “It will all be all right”
How do you know? Empty reassurances will make your friend feel only as
if you're minimising his problem, adding to his feelings of rejection.
Positive distraction Try not to let your friend spend too much time
moaning, and don't encourage it. Distract him instead. A trip to the cinema
or a long walk will take his mind off things and give him a break from
feeling negative.
Job loss is like a bereavement It is for some; others will want to talk
about the soap opera of office life and to know what happened next.
