How close the individual survivor is to the laid-off workers. How the survivor copes with change. Jon Leca, a Web architect at the Federal Aviation Administration, survived several layoffs at his former employer, a trade association in the District. I felt anger and disappointment. But a later layoff that was handled more fairly hurt survivors less, Leca says.
Employers can mitigate the distress of layoffs.
Helen Drinan helped manage a major downsizing at BankBoston, a large financial institution in Massachusetts. Others point out that if companies focus totally on those who are laid off, negative feelings can arise among the survivors. Although these numbers were better than those found in previous surveys, Gorman says there's still a long way to go. Employers need to train managers to listen to the surviving employees, to acknowledge their feelings of loss and anxiety and to help them figure out how to cope with the changed workplace. For their part, surviving employees need to acknowledge how a layoff may be affecting their emotional health.