How Not to Help a Friend Who’s Suffered a Higher Ed Job Loss
By: Shane J. Ralston
Tags: Solidarity, Higher Education, Job Security, Human Resources, Job Loss

Meyer’s advice

Meyer’s article opens with an observation about the dire consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic downturn on higher education institutions. Similar to other businesses, they too must cut staff in order to preserve their core operations:

It’s a hard time in higher education. Like all businesses, universities and colleges are trying to continue their work under difficult conditions while retaining as much of their talented staff as possible.

For Meyer, it’s not important to stand up to institutional bullies who devalue teaching by firing teachers. It’s best to look the other way, rather than protest wasteful administrative bloat (often ignored in cost-cutting decision-making because administrators are the deceision-makers). And it’s prudent to stand alone, instead of side-by-side, in solidarity with your dismissed colleagues. (‘Solidarity’ is a dirty word.)

For Meyer, it’s a time to accept the inevitability of retrenchment and show “support” for those who have been so unlucky as to lose their jobs in the latest round of cuts:

It is an emotionally complex time both for those who have lost their jobs and for those who continue to work in higher education. Many [survivors of job cuts] are looking to assist their friends and former coworkers who are searching for new roles. [ . . . ] Losing a job unleashes big feelings. There’s no easy solution for those. Be with your friend in her pain, and remain a presence until she is ready to pick up the pieces and move forward. Give her space, but make sure to check in. When you do so, lead with open-ended questions. “How are you?” can be a more supportive question than “How is the search going?” It gives your friend room to field the question however she needs to; this way, she stands to feel cared for and not pressured.

In this “emotionally complex time,” Meyer advises that survivors “lend [their] talent,” assisting the dismissed in their job search, and sharing their network, even going so far as to generously write them a LinkedIn recommendation. This advice is shockingly tone deaf. (I have a difficult time appreciating how 15 minutes of your time spent writing a LinkedIn recommendation constitutes an act of generosity or sacrifice.)

Meyer assumes that retrenchment is inevitable because colleges and universities are businesses. Businesses must make hard choices when revenues drop. Likewise, higher education institutions must operate as so-called “lean organizations” if the wish to survive hard times.

It’s imprudent for retrenchment survivors to confront the administration, insisting that dismissed employees get their positions back. At some institutions, faculty have negotiated with the administration to distribute the burden of cuts more equitably, agreeing to system-wide pay reductions in order to rehire dismissed employees or retain threatened ones. Sometimes, faculty have had to strike to bring administrators to the bargaining table.

Perhaps the most absurd piece of advice Meyer offers survivors of higher ed job cuts is about what she calls ‘professional karma.’ Through their token displays of generosity and sacrifice, survivors will ultimately benefit when the karmic wheel comes full circle:

Professional karma is real. Helping another professional deal with the difficulty of job loss is a wonderful act of service, and it has a way of coming back around.

Meyer’s advice to those who survive retrenchment amounts to this: To assuage your guilt, support your dismissed colleagues, assist them in networking and finding a new job — basically, help them move on — and trust that all the kindness you bestow on them will rebound to you as good karma.

Perhaps the last part is true: If the opportunity arises in the future (and you’re the victim of cuts), they will happily show you the exit just as positively as you once showed it to them!