In the Department of Labor study, for example, an astounding 42 percent of the 4.5 million laid-off employees received no written notification of their dismissal. Perrewe's anecdotal information tends to support the Labor report's dismal findings. She tells of a colleague in the Midwest who was told his services as a consultant would no longer be needed because his company was planning massive layoffs. The colleague assumed those layoffs would be carefully planned and executed over a reasonable period of time. Instead they were announced without notice, with the axed's names read over the company's intercom system.
Many people are very ego-involved with their jobs.
To take that away from them is to take away their identity. And doing it insensitively pushes some past their limits. The flatter corporate structures of re-engineered corporations offers few internal opportunities for advancement. To find out more about the ramifications of career plateauing and explore possible solutions, Perrewe recently made an interesting offer to the hundreds of companies that receive her college's Center for Human Resources Management newsletter. The center offered consulting expertise at no charge to companies that suspected that career plateauing might be causing morale and productivity problems.