Survival of the...survivors

Having made the necessary workforce cuts, there is one final hurdle facing employers: survival syndrome. This silent threat has the potential to destroy organisations already struggling in the recession. The syndrome refers to employees who, having survived a period of redundancies, struggle to adjust to a change in workload and atmosphere. This pressure generates anxiety over job security, eventually leading to employees leaving the organisation for no real reason other than paranoia.

Breaking the Chain

There are steps which can both prevent and break the chain of survival syndrome.

• Crucially, there must be open communication between management and workers at all levels. This will prevent second guessing.
• Ask for their involvement, make them invested in your company by helping it to survive.
• Emphasise the things that have not changed. If the new atmosphere or culture at work differs too much, the remaining employees will not feel an affinity with the organisation.
• Make people feel special by drawing attention to their strongest points, praise achievement. This will encourage employees to continue going the extra mile.

By following these steps it is possible to prevent and reverse the devastating effects of survival syndrome

Basically, there are more things to measure than ‘just’ employee engagement. When companies only measures employee engagement, they may miss something important.

• What about the perceived leadership and the impact on organisational performance?
• What about employee role clarity with survivor syndrome? 
• What about the impact of employee loyalty on absenteeism and retention?

Leading organisations now choose insight into best practises and weak spots rather than just measuring employee engagement. Why? Because they would like to be absolutely sure they do not miss out anything crucial...

When a company is open to internal and external best practises (wishes to learn from ‘better’ companies/countries) and is able to face its own strengths and weaknesses, organisational performance will rocket.

More: Leadership, Loyalty, Performance, Recession, Role clarity, Survivor Syndrome