Dealing with Reduced Staff after Downsizing

Before you can hope to successfully manage reduced staff, you need to understand what you are dealing with. You need to be aware that, more than just some empty offices or workstations, your working environment has changed radically.

If the recent downsizing was the result of a difficult industry or national economy, these changes - and how you react to them - are even more challenging to address.

The most critical knowledge you need is to understand the feelings of the remaining staff after downsizing, and react accordingly. Your remaining staff will experience some or all of the following emotions:

• Fear
• Anger
• Uncertainty
• Reservations about team work
• Timidity
• Resistance

From this morass of negativity, managers are expected to rebuild bridges and create motivated and productive staff. To give yourself the best chance to be successful, it’s important to understand that regardless of how well you knew these employees before the downsizing, they are different people now. Their psyches have been seriously “dented,” by the act of downsizing.

Be honest with yourself, too. Unless you're the CEO and sole stockholder, you may have one or more of those feelings yourself. The heightened expectations you face to perform personally and motivate the remaining staff to produce at high levels may take its toll on you. You must rise above these feelings and change your focus to improve your chances of success.

Understanding how your employees now feel is the first step in employing the creativity, motivation, and leadership you need to energise your staff. Here are some suggestions on how to manage effectively and get work done productively.

How to Get the Work Done with Reduced Staff
First, at all costs, strongly resist the temptation to wave the white flag and adopt an attitude of defeat. Your company needs you to be more creative, committed, and driven than ever before. Some steps you can take that may translate your commitment to your staff include the following:

• Convince your team to look at this situation as an opportunity to shine.
  Downsizing in a difficult economy tends to change the game very quickly and dramatically. Don’t wait to address this situation directly and positively. Your team may initially treat your efforts as simply positive “spin” without real merit. But if you consistently repeat the message that they now have the opportunity to become company heroes, your staff will often become believers.
  
  
• Explain that the extra work necessary from each individual can make them more valuable to the company and, more importantly, to their own career.
  Instilling this concept in the collective staff psyche may re-energise some team members at first, and possibly the entire group eventually. Spurring the superior performance of the few can often motivate the many.
  
  
• Privately address those staff members who publicly offer the most resistance and negativity.
  Those employees that have embraced the negative aspects of downsizing and are prone to share these feelings freely with coworkers need some special attention. Their resistance and anger, while understandable, must be defused to eliminate any serious damage to your positive efforts. A private one-on-one meeting may deliver your message of a new opportunity to excel to more receptive ears.
  
  
• Allow remaining staff to express their feelings.
  Don’t force your remaining staff to suppress their natural feelings of fear and uncertainty. Let them vent and express themselves. Only then can you effectively transmit your message of hope and opportunity to your team.
  
  
• Reemphasize the importance of teamwork to get the job done.
  Often, formerly wonderful teammates retreat out of the fear of being separated from the team in the next round of downsizing. Reinforce the importance of the “team” concept to get work done on time and as requested.
  

All of these tips are directed at reinforcing your employees’ feelings of value to the company and themselves. The primary goal in dealing with reduced staff after downsizing is to have your staff “buy into” this necessary reorganisation of operations. Your actions should support your words for maximum effectiveness. If your message is both positive and consistent, you have an excellent chance of getting the job done with style and grace.