DETROIT — Cheryl Shewach has weathered several economic storms with several employers. She has been laid off, and as a human resources professional, she has done some laying off.
“I’ve participated in hirings, firings and layoffs. I’ve been a survivor many times, and it’s not fun,” said Shewach, 61, who is a human resources manager with Novi, Mich.-based JPRA Architects. “For survivors, it’s a difficult spot to be in. You’re doing more with less.”
What Shewach has experienced is the complex cocktail of emotions that many workers are feeling, as the unemployment continues and businesses shed jobs in successive layoffs and buyouts. While those who are out of work scramble to find new jobs or careers, many of those who are left behind feel anxious, demoralized, stressed out and guilty.
“There are several things going on with survivors. You’re feeling guilty that your coworkers are being let go, and you’re wondering if you’re next,” said Judith Hoppin of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., president of the National Career Development Association. “It’s guilt and fear, especially in southeastern Michigan, where people are hanging on with their fingernails.” In this economy, unemployment expected to rise in many areas, surviving is all anybody can ask for. And nobody who has a job says he or she would rather be in the unemployment line.
“Every time, I’ve been lucky that enough people take a buyout,” said Celso Duque of Lincoln Park, Mich., an assembly line worker at General Motors Co.’s Detroit/Hamtramck plant. “That’s what’s been saving me.” At his plant, Duque, 31, is a UAW committee representative constantly barraged with questions from anxious colleagues, including 150 to 200 people who have been laid off and likely won’t be called back. Duque encourages laid-off workers to go back to school and start another career.
“I worry about the ones who have kids, and what they’ve lost,” said Duque. “My dad was laid off for six years from GM in the 1980s when I was a kid. I know the situation the children go through. That’s the one that hurts me the most.”
LACK OF SECURITY TAKES A TOLL
Feeling insecure about your job exacts a price on physical and mental health, said Sarah Burgard, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, who has studied the effects of job insecurity.
Burgard’s team looked at 3,000 employed people younger than 60 participating in two long-term studies and divided them into those who worried about losing their jobs and those who didn’t. The 2008 study found that people who felt chronically insecure about their jobs reported much worse overall health and were more depressed than those who actually lost their jobs and were re employed.
“Living with uncertainty, that’s extremely damaging to your health,” said Burgard.
Consider the recent upheaval in the auto industry, which has seen the number of manufacturing jobs in southeast Michigan sliced in half since 2000, the Southeastern Michigan Council of Governments reported.
Metro Detroit has lost more than 446,000 hourly and salaried jobs.
Staci Drake of Troy, Mich., who works in corporate logistics for an auto supplier and whose husband works for GM, can see the little ways job worries have taken their toll. Her job duties have changed to fill the void left by laid-off colleagues.
“It weighs on you,” said Drake. “It just becomes really, really difficult when you see people you know, respect and like go through this.” When she looks back on the past year, she said, she doesn’t think her family has sat down to dinner as much. Her attendance at yoga, which once brought her relaxation and serenity, slacked off — “It’s become a real chore.”
BUSINESSES LOSE OUT, TOO
For those still working, successive downsizing has likely hurt every measure of workplace performance, said Kim Cameron, a University of Michigan Ross Business School professor of management and organization.
“You can predict with about 85 percent accuracy that performance will deteriorate — meaning productivity, morale, quality of output, service to customers,” said Cameron. “Downsizing … is the most implemented change strategy in the world, and it’s probably the least effective.” “In downsizing,” Cameron said, “people get threatened and get rigid and hunker down. It’s often when you need the most creativity, and you’re least likely to get it.” Still, as the recession deepens, what once drove the economy — consumer spending — has collapsed, forcing employers to make tough choices.
Many employers — some of whom had little choice but to downsize to stay afloat — are seeking to address the stress surviving workers feel.
Mary Schroeder, president of the Southfield, Mich.-based American Society of Employers, said the issue of employee morale is a constant concern for the organization’s 1,000 members, who represent human resources professionals at companies large and small.
At a recent seminar, employers shared ways to build cohesion among decimated workforces. Chief among them, said Schroeder, is keeping lines of communications open between management and staff through lunches and regular meetings with workers to address questions.
“Be honest and up-front with them,” Schroeder said.
“If employees don’t know what’s going on, then they’re going to assume the worst. You’re getting the communication out, and they’re hearing it from an executive.”
LOOKING FOR WAYS TO COPE
Although companies are striving to encourage group methods of coping, oftentimes, workers develop their own mechanisms.
Tom Reifenberg, 26, of Dearborn, Mich., who has worked in finance at Ford Motor Co. for four years, said that after seeing people that he knows as good workers being walked out the door, “you go back to your desk and figure out a position so we don’t have to see it happen again.” Lenore Zelenock, 48, a Ford employee working in finance, feels the same way. She has tried to focus on what she can control in an environment where Ford cut heads, but didn’t cut the workload.
“I can control doing a good job. I can work 100 or 110 percent and let the chips fall where they may,” said Zelenock of Northville Township, Mich. “You don’t want to be too stressed out, which will prevent you from doing your job, and then you could be the next one.” ——— (c) 2009, Detroit Free Press.
