Is the Economy Making Managers Cold, Indifferent?

By Rhonda Campbell 

What Has the Economy Done to American Managers

It’s fairly clear what layoffs and the economy have brought to the lives of those impacted by this mass worker exodus. What’s not as clear is the impact the economy and layoffs have had on managers. In desperate attempts to keep their jobs are managers shutting down and becoming indifferent or cold, at best, to the very workers they are paid to lead?

“Work longer hours or lose your job” and “The economy’s down, you’re going to have to take on the work of two additional people until the economy rebounds” are directions managers have been known to toss out to tired workers. Managers who once allowed workers to take an extended lunch break to run personal errands (e.g. attend doctor appointments) are shaking their heads at the idea today.

Forget the push for work/life balance that dominated news headlines and magazine articles years ago. Seems few managers are thinking about work/life balance. Right now, it’s just “Get the work done.” 

Managers Using the Economy as an Excuse to Let Workers Go

Of course, some companies are also using the economy as an excuse to lay consistently poor performers off, people they were afraid to show the door in clearer economic skies for fear they’d receive a neatly typed letter from an experienced attorney. Now that millions of American workers have been displaced perhaps it has become easier for managers to pass out those so-unwelcomed pink slips.  

Consider this. Some Americans have been laid off: 

• A week or less before Christmas
• Because the company hired a new executive who wanted to bring in her/his own crew
• Less than six months after they received a promotion
• Due to missing days from work to care for a terminally ill spouse or child
• Because they refused to relocate across the country or overseas to a new department (that had no guarantee of becoming successful) the company started
• Their managers were laid off, so due to being a direct hire of certain managers, they were also shown the door 

Perhaps it’s true that humans are like pack animals. After we see several people do something it somehow becomes easier for us to follow suit. Perhaps if we were managers, we would have become cold by now too.  

One can only hope that laid off workers don’t allow recent experiences to keep them from seeking better employment and higher paying jobs. Thousands of laid off American workers just might decide to start their own company. Of course, this would move them from the employee seat into the employer/manager seat. 

If you were laid off, what was your experience like and what are you doing to rebound? Share your experience in the comments section.

There’s more about Spiral and Long Walk Up atwww.chistell.com 

Sources:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Employment Situation Summary)

http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/ted_20110215.htm (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Extended Mass Layoffs