| February 2003 |
The Importance of a Mangers’ Assistance Program During Organizational Change Andrew Davies, ICAS Southern Africa “It’s a widely held view that re-engineering or restructuring (or whatever term you want to use) through layoffs is necessary for the survival of the organization. It’s never really questioned as a strategy. The view is always that downsizing and layoffs will automatically lower overhead, reduce bureaucracy, hasten decision making, and increase productivity. From my own point of view, having worked in this area for some years now, it’s not the downsizing process in and of itself that restores an organization back to productive employment or makes it more competitive. It’s how that process is managed. And it has become abundantly clear to me that the process is never really appropriately planned or thought through. I say that because very often we’re called into organizations once the process is in progress and suddenly they realize there’s a huge mess. I’m going to illustrate what we’ve done to help organizations through a program of assistance and support that we’ve offered to managers. Managers often are felt to be the lucky ones or are seen as the executioners in this process. They’re the people everyone hates. And we often ignore or neglect the stresses and pressures they go through. About a year ago we were approached for assistance by one of [South Africa’s] largest financial institutions. With the dematerialization of share certificates and the introduction of an electronic settlement system, a number of positions in paper-based systems were being made redundant. This was an industry-wide initiative, and a lot of jobs were being cut. The particular division we worked with had to halve their staff numbers over a six-month period. Our challenge was to assist management in negotiating the process effectively and efficiently, looking toward organizational renewal and business continuity and bearing in mind that this was occurring against a background of 30 percent unemployment in South Africa. We gave all managers within the program access to an EAP through a toll-free number, with face-to-face counseling and life management [work/life] services as well as a whole series of inputs on training on how to manage the redundancy process. Our belief was that we needed to equip them with an understanding of what that process is all about--what happens to people when downsizing is implemented and what happens to the organization. The analogy I used was that if the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a nail and you have to beat everything into shape. What we wanted to do what put more tools in their toolboxes and empower them to better manage this difficult situation. Perhaps more important was the need to help them understand the impact this process was having on them personally. It often put them in an untenable situation where they felt they were doomed if they did and doomed if they didn’t. The first step was to educate them about the impact of downsizing on an organization. Very little is left untouched during a downsizing. And in the financial services industry, what we’ve seen is that moving to an electronic system brings in a much younger corporate culture of “techies” to replace an older group of people with many years of experience in the industry. In this particular case, the bank was also tying an aggressive affirmative action program into the retrenchment process. So the whole “feel” of the organization was changing. The critical skills of an organization also change during a retrenchment. The people who are considered the “dinosaurs” have enormously valuable skills and knowledge of how everything works and interacts and who the various players are. When they leave, it often creates a huge knowledge gap. The second step was to help managers understand the impact on employees--the people they had to manage. The analogy we used was the breakup of a relationship, because people often experience the same kinds of emotions during a downsizing as when they lose a relationship or undergo a divorce. The managers needed to understand that and to see the process as a loss, particularly for people who had worked together for a long time. We had to stress to managers that reactions would differ from individual to individual; some people would be extremely angry, while others would become immobilized and upset. Some of them might then begin “bargaining,” thinking that if they worked harder and showed their mettle over the next six months, perhaps they’d keep their jobs. Finally, they would come to terms with the process, realize they needed to get their resumes together and sharpen their interviewing skills, and then go find another job. The whole aim of educating managers was to emphasize that their role was to do whatever they could to ensure that people made this transition successfully. Their role was not to help people who were stuck in one of the phases, but to be able to identify individuals who were immobilized in some way and make sure they got the professional assistance they needed.” DISCUSSION (Member Exchange Forum) |
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© 2003 Exhange On-Line is a publication of the Employee Assistance Professionals Association, Inc. (EAPA). Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is expressly prohibited. Publication of bylined articles does not constitute endorsement of personal views of authors. Appearance of paid advertisements does not constitute endorsement by EAPA. |
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