The Redundancy Massacre Playing at an office near you now
Cue the dramatic music – deee dum, deee dum, screech.
The sky slowly darkens.
The hapless victim is hiding, crouching in the half-dark.
He’s listening, looking, waiting with increasing dread for….
not a chainsaw-wielding zombie
but
his redundancy letter.
I have several clients and friends waiting for the redundancy axe to fall. Or to find out if they are one of the “lucky ones” to escape until the next round.
Every meeting that comes into their calendar from their boss, they first look around the corner into the meeting room to see if HR is there too. If HR is there, it means the chop.
Colleagues huddle in small groups, speculating, “…we had the first round of redundancies earlier in the year. They will do more if business doesn’t improve, but not until quarter? 4….”
They are overthinking and double-guessing everything eg Should I take an expensive holiday now? Or better, a staycation to save money? Or should we go away somewhere nice and let the family enjoy before the hard times start? Or perhaps I stay at work and send the kids to grandma’s?
Watching, waiting and languishing
They try to get motivated about their work, life or even a holiday. But they can’t because they’re stuck in slow-motion, wishing they could push fast forward.
The feeling is called languishing. The same feeling many of us had over COVID as we waited for life to “return to normal”. While waiting, it was easier to scroll Insta, watch Netflix or bake banana bread than do something constructive.
Languishing kills motivation, steals joy, and takes a lot of energy and effort to keep from feeling psychologically unwell. As one of my clients put it, I feel like I’ve lost my mojo.
Taking back control
The languishing feeling is also associated with helplessness in dealing with a situation outside your control. Like during the pandemic, there was not much we could do about COVID itself, only how we reacted to it.
When the redundancy horror movie opening credits are rolling, there are things in your control and some that are not
What’s in your control
·?????? Having clarity of what you want to do next in your career
·?????? Developing your career story
·?????? Preparing a professional CV and LinkedIn profile
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·?????? Looking after your physical and mental wellbeing
·?????? Choosing how you approach current and future challenges
What’s not in your control
·?????? When will you be informed
·?????? What is your redundancy package
·?????? Who is on the redundancy list
·?????? What other people will say or think
·?????? What the job market is like
·?????? Changing anything that you’ve done up until now
10 kilos of mental weight
Languishing’s best friend is procrastination. Together they will add 10 kilos of additional mental weight.
So don’t procrastinate. Take action on one of the things that are in your control today. You’ll feel lighter.
PS: Give me a call if you want to talk through your career horror story and learn more about taking back control.
As always, Lets work like a human
Warmly
Jane
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Organizational Change, Strategic Business Development. Project Management
1 年Redundancy Nightmare is not only on Elm Street, and tends to re-play annually like Halloween. ?? Focusing on what I can control works best for me, reviewing my career aspirations and trying to take care of me and be gentle to others. Can't say I keep it all together all the time, and have never turned into re-structured Chucky. ??
Great newsletter Jane Piper. I think a lot of people have been facing the ?Mojo moment“ since 2020, at first with the post pandemic return to work and a questioning of their life choices taken to date, and then having to balance this new personal enlightenment with a challenging work situation and then the macro economic frailty we can see in a lot of the major economies. A lot of my network in the Saas space can attest to this, as can a lot of the TA’s who have been laid off globally. Your article helps people to acknowledge and rationalize their situation - and also realise it is not one they face in isolation. Having others around to help give them a wider perspective is essential to help them to move to action and take back control as much as they can.
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1 年"Languishing kills motivation, steals joy, and takes a lot of energy and effort to keep from feeling psychologically unwell" My partner is in this situation. I am grateful that for me the axe fell swiftly and "out of the blue". However for her I see the daily effort she needs to disengage from the cognitive dissonance that arises when the employer on the one hand extols virtues of strong people values, care and expectation of 100% commitment, yet on the other is clearly demonstrating everything but 100% commitment to the people. And this daily effort itself can make people mentally ill. Yet while we are all smart, rational people and this concept of taking back control is clear and rational it remains a difficult step to take. IMHO there is an emotional barrier to overcome. I think when you take back control, you really acknowledge to yourself this relationship is over. I also think there needs to be tools or techniques to help this. "This marriage is really over" - it is an emotional step to acknowledge. For me this is the challenge. What advice do you have in this regard please?