Healing the Downsized Organization

by Delorese Ambrose

Healing the Downsized Organization is for managers and employees who must make sense of dramatically changed workplaces after reengineering, restructuring, or downsizing. Here are "best practices" from those who are successfully reinventing their organizations and re-creating healthy workplaces. Documented examples from executives, managers, and employees who have bounced back from this challenge reveal how they minimized pain during downsizing and discovered promising possibilities for changed employer-employee relationships.

Dramatic profiles of four organizations--representing manufacturing, media journalism, education, and health care--provide lessons you can practice today, whether downsizing is unfolding now or whether it looms in the future. From interviews with CEOs, managers, and employees, you will understand how individuals at all levels have handled the tension between personal and organizational goals, managed the human struggles, and achieved victories as they cut costs and redeployed resources to face competition or changing market conditions.

You will learn how these companies and individuals coped with downsizing,

         ¸ how "survivors" regained momentum, focus, and job satisfaction after downsizing
         ¸ what kinds of company-employee interactions allowed trust to be rebuilt
         ¸ how managers succeeded in balancing the concerns of those who left and those who stayed
         ¸ ways to be an effective leader in the transitional period
         ¸ approaches to forge a new employer-employee social contract for the emerging workplace

Healing the Downsized Organization is the recovery book for the downsizing of America.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published December 30, 1996

Reviews

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty quick read; I finished it in a week's worth of lunch breaks. The premise is that while downsizing has obvious effects on those who are let go, it has a less appreciated effect on those who are left behind. A significant majority of downsizing organizations fail to receive the expected benefits of the change, which the author attributes to lingering fear, doubt, and resentment on the part of the survivors. Having been through the process myself, I've seen this in action; the safest thing for an employee to do in such an environment is keep his head down, do his job, and not make any waves. That's not the sort of environment that encourages innovation or develops leaders.

I think the number one take-away for management is to communicate. If people are going to be let go, be honest and direct about it. Whether you let them go immediately or give them a few months' notice is up to you, but don't just sit on the news; the gossip and accompanying demotivation will bring the company to a grinding halt. Also, give your remaining employees the tools and training they need to do everything you expect of them.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's much in here that employees will find comforting. While the author tries to spin this new order of free agency into something liberating, having to manage your own career is a pretty significant burden as well. In addition to no longer having the stability of a guaranteed job, today's employees are expected to develop skills on their own time and at their own expense just to stay competitive. That's not easy to accept when the company says they had to cut costs to avoid going under, but then boasts about having their best year ever.