My brilliant colleague Lucy Kellaway in her column this week sums up much better than I ever could the feeling around the office at the moment...
(I've tried linking to her piece, but because of the registration window it wouldn't work, so I hope no-one minds if I just print it here. But, seriously, go buy a copy of the paper and keep the rest of us in a job. Thanks!)
"Last week 30 people left the Financial Times after opting for voluntary redundancy. On Monday, a party was held for them. There was nice food and nice drinks and nice speeches and a band played.
You could say this was a happy occasion for all concerned. Each was leaving by choice. They had weighed up the relative merits of slogging on with the day job, and leaving now with a very large cheque in their back pockets. Each had decided the latter looked the more tempting option.
It was a pretty good outcome for the newspaper, too. Voluntary redundancy allows a company to eliminate jobs without eliminating the goodwill of the entire workforce. The FT has reduced its payroll a bit while clinging on to the moral high ground.
What interests me, though, is not how good this must be for those who have gone, nor how smug the company is feeling. I am interested in the emotions of those left behind. "Survivor guilt" is what the business schools call the response to mass firings of workmates. But when your colleagues leave voluntarily, the emotional response is more subtle and more shameful.
This week, I have taken my own emotional temperature and asked about a bit, and I have come up with eight different survivor syndromes following voluntary redundancy - all of which I suspect are quite common.
1. Survivor envy. When 30 colleagues have taken their lives by the horns, you cannot help but wonder if you are a hopeless, spineless wimp not to have done the same with yours. In the past month, most of us have whipped out our calculators to see how the numbers would work. We have drooled over the lump sum and imagined new lives: that house in France, that trip round the world. But then we have looked at the numbers again and either seen that they do not add up or concluded that we are not brave enough to give it a go and have returned to the harness - which feels rather heavier than it did before.
2. Survivor bereavement. This is a big one: the sight of so many people going is sad and unsettling. People who you have worked with for years suddenly are not there any more; the person who edited my first story on the newspaper is gone forever.
In the past few days, there have been a string of e-mails from departing colleagues, saying goodbye and giving contact details. I saved some of them, but I knew I would not be getting in touch.
And this is the odd thing about this office bereavement - it feels intense at the time, but it lasts an almost indecently short period of time. The water closes over frighteningly quickly. It is perhaps in the nature of these work relationships that, although you see each other more than you see your own family, the closeness is based entirely on the fact that you work together. Once you no longer do so, the point of it is gone.
3. Survivor "premature ageing" syndrome. This happens when the people who leave are older and more experienced than you. Last week, the FT lost more than 600 years of experience. This is a little alarming for those of us who are on the next rung down. I now find myself one of the oldest and most experienced people around, which is a bit more exposed than I would like, ideally.
4. Survivor "existential crisis" syndrome. This is by far the most worrying of the syndromes, so skip this one if you are feeling emotionally fragile. It goes like this. Last week, watching these people say goodbye, I started to wonder what it had been about. They had worked hard for all those years and then walked out of the door for the last time with some money, but with what else? What was the point of all those years? What did they have to show for it?
The troubling thing about these questions is that if they apply to the people who have gone, they apply equally to the people who remain. What is the point of what we do? This is too big and too ugly a question, and as I ask it I am pushing it back into the box and continuing to tap out the words of this transient column regardless. Existential angst and regular office work are not compatible. That way madness lies.
5. A happier syndrome is the survivor "I'm-too-valuable-to-go" syndrome. This applies to people who asked to leave, but were turned down. Handled badly, this can be disastrous. If you are told you cannot take the money and run by dint of your superior performance, you may feel that you are being punished for your hard work and end up feeling very bitter indeed.
The good news is that any half-way decent manager should be able to avoid this, and turn the situation to their advantage. By laying on the flattery with a trowel, they can give the person who is not allowed to leave a very nice ego boost that makes them happy to stay after all.
6. Related to this is the survivor "I'm-glad-to-see-the-back-of-you" syndrome. The great thing to aim at when doing a voluntary scheme is to make sure you lose the people who are unhappy in their jobs. They are much more of a problem than the people who are not very good. Unhappy people spread misery, and bitter ones should be shown the door at once. You could say that the presence of competent yet unhappy people in an organisation is a sign of bad management. But that is another story.
7. Survivor "how-long-do-I-have -to-wait-before-nabbing-that-office" syndrome. There is now a rather nice office up for grabs. I know for a fact that at least two people have their eye on it. I would not mind it myself, come to that.
8. And finally, the survivor "how-many-more-leaving-cards-have -I-got-to-sign" syndrome. This one does not bother me unduly. I long since gave up trying to think up bons mots for leaving cards and always just write: good luck."
(I've tried linking to her piece, but because of the registration window it wouldn't work, so I hope no-one minds if I just print it here. But, seriously, go buy a copy of the paper and keep the rest of us in a job. Thanks!)
"Last week 30 people left the Financial Times after opting for voluntary redundancy. On Monday, a party was held for them. There was nice food and nice drinks and nice speeches and a band played.
You could say this was a happy occasion for all concerned. Each was leaving by choice. They had weighed up the relative merits of slogging on with the day job, and leaving now with a very large cheque in their back pockets. Each had decided the latter looked the more tempting option.
It was a pretty good outcome for the newspaper, too. Voluntary redundancy allows a company to eliminate jobs without eliminating the goodwill of the entire workforce. The FT has reduced its payroll a bit while clinging on to the moral high ground.
What interests me, though, is not how good this must be for those who have gone, nor how smug the company is feeling. I am interested in the emotions of those left behind. "Survivor guilt" is what the business schools call the response to mass firings of workmates. But when your colleagues leave voluntarily, the emotional response is more subtle and more shameful.
This week, I have taken my own emotional temperature and asked about a bit, and I have come up with eight different survivor syndromes following voluntary redundancy - all of which I suspect are quite common.
1. Survivor envy. When 30 colleagues have taken their lives by the horns, you cannot help but wonder if you are a hopeless, spineless wimp not to have done the same with yours. In the past month, most of us have whipped out our calculators to see how the numbers would work. We have drooled over the lump sum and imagined new lives: that house in France, that trip round the world. But then we have looked at the numbers again and either seen that they do not add up or concluded that we are not brave enough to give it a go and have returned to the harness - which feels rather heavier than it did before.
2. Survivor bereavement. This is a big one: the sight of so many people going is sad and unsettling. People who you have worked with for years suddenly are not there any more; the person who edited my first story on the newspaper is gone forever.
In the past few days, there have been a string of e-mails from departing colleagues, saying goodbye and giving contact details. I saved some of them, but I knew I would not be getting in touch.
And this is the odd thing about this office bereavement - it feels intense at the time, but it lasts an almost indecently short period of time. The water closes over frighteningly quickly. It is perhaps in the nature of these work relationships that, although you see each other more than you see your own family, the closeness is based entirely on the fact that you work together. Once you no longer do so, the point of it is gone.
3. Survivor "premature ageing" syndrome. This happens when the people who leave are older and more experienced than you. Last week, the FT lost more than 600 years of experience. This is a little alarming for those of us who are on the next rung down. I now find myself one of the oldest and most experienced people around, which is a bit more exposed than I would like, ideally.
4. Survivor "existential crisis" syndrome. This is by far the most worrying of the syndromes, so skip this one if you are feeling emotionally fragile. It goes like this. Last week, watching these people say goodbye, I started to wonder what it had been about. They had worked hard for all those years and then walked out of the door for the last time with some money, but with what else? What was the point of all those years? What did they have to show for it?
The troubling thing about these questions is that if they apply to the people who have gone, they apply equally to the people who remain. What is the point of what we do? This is too big and too ugly a question, and as I ask it I am pushing it back into the box and continuing to tap out the words of this transient column regardless. Existential angst and regular office work are not compatible. That way madness lies.
5. A happier syndrome is the survivor "I'm-too-valuable-to-go" syndrome. This applies to people who asked to leave, but were turned down. Handled badly, this can be disastrous. If you are told you cannot take the money and run by dint of your superior performance, you may feel that you are being punished for your hard work and end up feeling very bitter indeed.
The good news is that any half-way decent manager should be able to avoid this, and turn the situation to their advantage. By laying on the flattery with a trowel, they can give the person who is not allowed to leave a very nice ego boost that makes them happy to stay after all.
6. Related to this is the survivor "I'm-glad-to-see-the-back-of-you" syndrome. The great thing to aim at when doing a voluntary scheme is to make sure you lose the people who are unhappy in their jobs. They are much more of a problem than the people who are not very good. Unhappy people spread misery, and bitter ones should be shown the door at once. You could say that the presence of competent yet unhappy people in an organisation is a sign of bad management. But that is another story.
7. Survivor "how-long-do-I-have -to-wait-before-nabbing-that-office" syndrome. There is now a rather nice office up for grabs. I know for a fact that at least two people have their eye on it. I would not mind it myself, come to that.
8. And finally, the survivor "how-many-more-leaving-cards-have -I-got-to-sign" syndrome. This one does not bother me unduly. I long since gave up trying to think up bons mots for leaving cards and always just write: good luck."
posted by Steve at 11:21 PM
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