Times are tough.  We all know that.  And the employment news lately has been bad.  Nearly 600,000 people lost their jobs in November.  And unlike past job losses and economic downturns, the news is reported in real time by those employees directly impacted by the cuts.

Thanks to blogs, IM’s, discussion boards, social networking sites and micro-blogging tools like Twitter, employees are writing about their personal experiences – and the effect is rippling through organizations that have nothing to do with the layoffs.  Kami Huyse, writing in her Communications Overtones blog, provides seven suggestions to HR directors on how to approach announcing layoffs and handling the resulting need for discussion and empathy inside the organization:

  • The layoff (especially mass layoffs) will most likely be blogged, Twittered or otherwise related in a public forum
  • The company should consider putting out an official story about the layoffs and voicing genuine concern
  • The company will always be the bad guy, but this can be mitigated by doing the right thing
  • A personal touch is needed for these situations, forget mail, e-mail or SMS messages
  • Minimize faceless and policy-driven thinking
  • Remember that investors, future employees and your mother is watching how this is handled
  • Remaining employees will be demoralized by a brutal layoff – they could be next after all, plus they will have survivors guilt

    • HR staff and corporate managers shouldn’t fall into a trap of thinking they only have to worry about employees’ feelings when layoffs hit their operation.  The social aspect of online media today means that the losses and trauma experienced by employees at one company are now shared through their informal networks – networks that extend beyond the walls of the enterprise and can include friends, family members and colleagues at other businesses all over the world.

    Job loss creates very real grief in both the person losing the job and that person’s friends and family.  According to this piece on job loss grief, written by Carolyn Wilkin at the University of Florida, there are steps to the process of dealing with job loss grief – and there are things people can do to help their friends through those steps.

    Corporate owners and managers should be proactive though, recognizing the potential for lost productivity if they fail to recognize and deal with the side effects of the broader economic stresses on the economy.

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