Managing the Workplace Survivors: Organizational Downsizing and the Commitment Gap

HR Magazine, Feb, 1996 by David C. Wigglesworth

Downsizing, or the current euphemism right-sizing, is an ongoing phenomenon in American businesses today. Middle management is being reduced and technology and contract workers are replacing certain segments of the workforce. At the same time corporate profits are on the rise and executive salaries are reaching new heights. In such situations managing the survivors becomes a critical issue. When friends and colleagues depart and the savings show up in higher salaries at the top, those who remain may be less comfortable, may have guilt feelings about their own survival, and may be less motivated to succeed as they question their own fate in the organization.

Managers, particularly human resource professionals, face the task of revitalizing the surviving employees and realigning the corporate culture. They play a critical role in the new organizational structure as they try to identify specific strategies to increase quality, productivity, and bottom-line profitability. This role involves creating new strategies that empower, retain, and create new incentives for the surviving employees, as well as facilitating effective strategies that ensure the organization's own survival.

This thorough, but pricey, book is written for managers and other staff professionals who are faced with these formidable assignments. The authors propose a Survival Management Model and show how this model might work in different types of organizations.

The first part of Managing the Workplace Survivors discusses the survivor syndrome, the new workforce, the reengineering of corporate leadership, and developing a broad perspective on the organization's structure and change process. Also reviewed are the primary theories of organizations, the evolution of organizational culture and systems theory.

The second part of the book focuses on developing a survivor strategy and discusses various types of communication networks and their effect on the way organizations communicate. Strategies are proposed for developing networks that will support the transitions required in the new structure.

Of keen importance and interest is the chapter that discusses the leadership role of HR departments in the effective and humanistic management of organizational change. The HR department is seen as a strategically in helping managers to motivate and retain employees as well as in facilitating increased productivity and bottom-line profitability.

Professional competencies and personal profile checklists are included to help individuals determine if they have the requisite skills to meet the challenges of the changing corporation. The succeeding chapter, which examines motivational theories and suggests a new motivational track, also provides the HR department and the surviving managers with methods of reinvesting in human capital through redesigning work; maximizing increased productivity, autonomy, and responsibility; and increasing internal and external training and development opportunities.

The book offers targeted methods for increasing motivation and productivity and renewing vitality in the survivors and it places this responsibility on management's shoulders. Also discussed is a detailed management plan for the new organization and the need for managers to work as career counselors who help employees in these new situations in which many of the conventional career paths have disappeared. A discussion follows of managers coaching individual survivors to improve their performance and to facilitate communication as part of the survivor transition process. The last chapter chronicles a case study that applied the Survivor Management Model and discusses the strategies employed in each stage.

Although much of the book presents the management theories and models of others, the authors' Survivor Management Model is a distinct contribution to the profession and is one that can be applied readily in a variety of shrinking workforce situations.

Managing the Workplace Survivors: Organizational Downsizing and the Commitment Gap by Marvin R. Gottlieb and Lori Conkling, Quorum Books, 1995, 232 pages, $59.95, (203) 226-3571

David C. Wigglesworth, Ph.D., a human resource development consultant, is president of D. C. W. Research Associates International in Foster City, Calif.