Layoffs, Redundancies and Career Shifts: Navigating Challenging Changes with Leanne Elliott
Leanne Elliott - Certified Business Psychologist, Consultant and Coach
Leanne has a proven track record of building workplaces that empower teams and enable performance.
She is also Co-host of the award-winning psychology podcast, Truth, Lies & Work. Breaking into the prestigious HubSpot Podcast Network in 2022, the show is dedicated to helping business leaders simplify the science of the workplace. Today, Truth, Lies and Work is the UK’s #1 workplace culture podcast and a Top 10 trending business podcast globally.
One of the most traumatic experiences we can have in the workplace is being made redundant. From one day to the next, your life drastically changes and you don’t have a say.
Being made redundant raises all kinds of questions, as well as feelings like shock, anger and shame.
Sometimes leaders handle redundancies well. More often, they don’t, making the process immeasurably harder for those on the receiving end.
Redundancies are also complex for those who are left behind: you might feel survivors guilt – or the dread of not knowing if you’ll be next
If you’ve been made redundant you’re not alone. millions of people around the globe experience it every year, and rates have grown over the past 12 months in many countries.
So, what can leaders do to minimise pain for those who leave? How can you ensure culture continuity for those who stay? And for the person who’s been made redundant, what steps can you take to heal, recover and get back into the drivers seat of you career?
In this conversation we explore this with Leanne Elliott who is a Certified Business Psychologist, Consultant and Coach who builds workplaces that empower teams and enable performance. She is also Co-host of the award-winning psychology podcast, Truth, Lies & Work and Co-Founder of people and culture consultancy, Oblong.
Leanne shares practical tips and best practices for all of us to better understand more about the best ways to navigate one of the worst workplace experiences.
More about Leanne Elliott:
More recently, Leanne has dedicated her time to bringing best practice to small and medium sized enterprises as Co-Founder of people and culture consultancy, Oblong. Working in partnership with business owners and entrepreneurs, Leanne shapes approaches to recruitment, engagement and management that support individual well-being and enable organisations to thrive. Leanne’s recent engagements include creating a predictive model of engagement for a high growth professional services firm that drove measurable increases in employee well-being and business performance. She also led a global recruitment programme for Australia’s #1 rated executive branding firm, progressing to lead a 100% remote team spanning four continents.
Leanne has always been passionate about building cultures with both meaning and purpose. Her previous leadership roles include spearheading the development and delivery of pioneering welfare to work contracts for the Department of Work & Pensions. Over five years, her 30-strong team helped thousands of people across the UK overcome psychological, social and physical challenges, enabling them to return to sustainable employment.
Fundamentally, Leanne believes in the power of psychology - how understanding human behaviour, our own included, can unlock tenacity and resilience in even the toughest of times. To this end, Leanne spent five years as a volunteer with suicide prevention charity The Samaritans, including three as a committee member. During the COVID-19 crisis, she also worked pro-bono for public sector organisations, helping leadership teams to protect employee wellbeing while continuing to provide vital community services.
Learn more about Leanne Elliott, and find her podcast Truth, Lies, and Work here:
Connect with Leanne Elliott on LinkedIn and via her website.
Listen to Truth, Lies and Work on all major streaming platforms, and find the webpage here.
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Welcome to We Are Human Leaders. One of the most traumatic experiences we can have in the workplace is being made redundant. From one day to the next, your life drastically changes and you don't have a say. Being made redundant raises all kinds of questions as well as feelings like shock, anger and shame.
Sometimes leaders handle redundancies well. More often, they don't, making the process immeasurably harder for those on the receiving end. Redundancies are also complex for those who are left behind. You might feel survivor's guilt, or the dread of not knowing if you'll be next. If you've ever been made redundant, you're not alone.
Millions of people around the globe experience it every year, and rates have grown over the past 12 months in many countries. So what can leaders do to minimise [00:01:00] pain for those who leave? How can you ensure culture continuity for those who stay? And for the person who's been made redundant, what steps can you take to heal, recover, and get back into the driver's seat of your career?
I'm Sally Clark. And today, Alexa Sarna and I are speaking with an expert in this field. Leanne Elliott. Leanne is a certified business psychologist, consultant, and coach who builds workplaces that empower teams and enable performance. She's also co host of the award winning psychology podcast, Truth, Lies, and Work, and co founder of people and culture consultancy, Oblong.
Leanne shares practical tips and best practices for all of us to better understand more about the ways we can navigate the world. One of the worst workplace experiences. Let's delve in.
Thank you so much for being with us, Leanne. Welcome to We Are Human [00:02:00] Leaders. It's a delight to have this conversation with you. It's such an important topic. Before we delve into our conversation more deeply today, I'd love to start by understanding a bit more about you and your journey that's brought you to the incredible work that you're doing today.
Thank you so much for having me. It's so lovely to be here. My name is Leanne Elliott. I'm a psychologist, consultant and coach. I've spent the last 15 years or so helping organizations build environments in which people can thrive whilst delivering high levels of performance. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.
Along that journey, I've worked with organizations such as the National Health Service, the NHS in the UK, partner work in pensions and a fully remote company. It's actually an Australian company. Australia's number one rated branding agency. And that was during COVID as well. So that was fun. Well, to tell you, I have my own consultancy that I co founded with my business partner and my husband, Al Elliott.
As part of that, it's called Oblong HQ. As part of that, we started a little [00:03:00] podcast. Um, we've had a podcast before, a travel podcast. And so we thought, you know, we'll just do it again. And what turned, what was meant to be a very small, just marketing stream of our business, branding, lead generation, um, turned into the majority of the work that we now do.
So the podcast Truth, Lies and Work, we got picked up by the HubSpot podcast network after about five or six episodes, which was insane. Since then we've grown beyond what we could imagine and I get to spend most of my days talking to awesome leaders and psychologists and, and it's awesome. So it does feel a bit weird to be on the other side of it.
Sometimes I'm used to asking the question, so I feel a bit vulnerable in this moment. Oh, we're excited to be asking you the questions because you do have so much expertise in this area and. I love what you shared, Leanne, I think for us to, you know, conversations that help us understand ourselves, each other, the world at large, better are really what makes us come alive.
So really inspiring to hear the journey of your own podcast. And you know, we're talking today a little bit about the concept of [00:04:00] redundancies and layoffs, a very big part of what happens in organizations and a real challenge for people both. Implementing those, making decisions around them, but also on the receiving end.
Yeah, I just wanted to get your insights in particularly sort of around, you know, sort of starting around thinking the leaders who are making these layoffs, what are the kind of essential things that they need to sort of keep in mind at the very early stages when things start to come onto the table, we might be making layoffs.
How do they know when this is actually truly necessary in an organization? I think the thing to first understand as a leader is that layoffs of any kind should be your absolute last resort. I understand that the economic climate we're in at the moment is volatile, particularly in the tech industry.
We've seen tens of thousands of layoffs. The problem is layoffs don't really work and they don't really work from a people sense. They don't really work from a commercial sense. There's so much research that shows us that after layoffs happen, you [00:05:00] know, performance of the remaining team dips, morale dips, employee engagement dips, employees, teams lose trust in their managers.
And once that's gone, it's so hard to get back. There's even research that shows unhappier customers, lower revenue and profitability, huge impact on their brand. And actually one of the most interesting bits of research, and I think will probably surprise most people is that there is a massive drain of talent.
The 12 months after an organization has made layoffs. So even just making a 1 percent reduction in your workforce via layoffs will result in a 30 percent voluntary turnover rate for the next 12 months. So the talent drain is massive. So as far as I'm concerned, it really is about making any, trying everything else first, redundancies has to be the final, final option.
So things like other cost reduction measures, operational efficiencies, temporary salary cuts amongst the executive team, or even reduced working hours. Find some other way of [00:06:00] reducing costs in, you know, improving the stability, the financial viability of your business, because layoffs more disruptive than you will ever imagine.
And not to mention Leanne, to the individual experiencing the layoffs as well, there's obviously a flow on into the families and therefore into the communities of those impacted. That sudden loss of income and also the sense of, I guess, meaningfulness that we can derive from our work that then is missing from our lives really can, you know, flow on into the family unit and into the community.
And I'd love to just unpack for a moment, Leanne, do you see any differences in how layoffs impact across generations or perhaps looking at the implications through a DEI lens? Does this impact different segments of our community differently as well? When we consider DEI in terms of an organizational change, I mean, it is, it can feel a very individual thing, isn't it, DEI, it's how I, you know, how I identify as a person, the various demographics I use to identify myself, but in terms of [00:07:00] layoffs, the start point should always be at an organizational level and a human first perspective, you know, let's treat everybody like humans first and then we'll treat them as individuals, which sounds simple, but it's amazing how few organizations will actually treat people like humans.
in the first place. Yeah. So I think for me, it's like once that decision has been made in terms of you're having to make layoffs, the next decision is, well, who, how do we identify the people that we're going to make redundant? And there's various ways you can do it. I think it makes the most sense and has a less impact on the individual from whatever community they're from when it's a whole department that's made redundant.
So maybe a part of the business that is being sold off or It's just closing down. We see this typically with experimental departments, innovation departments can be, can be, you know, started in and then don't work out. In that sense, there's no real kind of, it doesn't feel as personal. It seems much more logical and it's a business decision.
So I think that's probably a, maybe an [00:08:00] outlier to the impact it would have on an individual community. The challenge comes when that's not the case and we're making people redundant from across the organization, across teams, across levels, and with that across demographics. There's various ways that organizations do it.
The popular one is first in first out. So whoever's been with a company the least amount of time is the first to go. Intuitively it seems fair. It seems to make sense, but the challenge with that is more than likely the people who have most recently joined our organization are the people who are just joining the workforce.
Who will be our younger generations or Gen Z. And the thing with Gen Z is that they are the most diverse generation in history. So if we get, you know, really reduce the workforce in terms of our younger people, that's a massive, you know, that's devastating for diversity because we're just losing that.
And we're also then losing, you know, the fresh thinking and a challenge and the disruption that we need in our organizations, particularly in a world where we need to be more competitive to survive. So that's, that's one way of doing it. Another way of [00:09:00] doing it is performance. So you look at the people who aren't performing as well.
Now this can work. If your organization has a really robust, fair, objective, well executed performance management process where your managers are trained on how to manage this, how to manage these conversations, how to have positive performance improvement plans in place for people who are struggling, how to support their mental health, how to support challenges they might have around other accountabilities in their lives, whether it be caring or parenting or anything else.
So few organizations do have this robust performance management in place. So what that means is that, you know, the people will come out of the bushes in, in terms of performance management review month and, and shout all the amazing things they've done and then they'll disappear again. Whereas the people that are actually working hard and keeping the company going, the people that are probably not going to shout as loud and they're probably introverts and probably women and probably people of color or people with a disability.
So it can be very difficult to do it from this perspective and then it can lead to bias in that sense. You know, we're [00:10:00] not very good at identifying the accurate levels of performance that we're going to be biased. We're biased as people, as humans. We just need to be conscious that we are that and have coping mechanisms in place and strategies in place.
I mean, if that is the case and you do have a great performance process, then yes, you can look at things like having diverse decision making panels, establishing a really clean objective criteria for those layoff decisions. So then at that point, it's not really about necessarily. The demographics of people you're looking at.
It's about the objectivity of, of who needs to sadly leave the business. What you're left with then is when you've identified who is going to leave, is then identifying, well, who is vulnerable in this group of people who we're going to make redundant? What is the wraparound care that we can provide for them?
So things like peer support groups for single parents or younger people, or people who are maybe a few years away from retirement. specialist outsourcing services, so when we help people with their resume, LinkedIn, identifying jobs, working with recruiters going, going, [00:11:00] working with recruiters going forward, do we need some specialist outsourcing services in terms of people that work with people who are neurodiverse or have a disability?
Um, we can look at financial wellbeing workshops for those that perhaps don't have the runway and the savings. There's so many things we can do. I think there can be a danger when we think about DEI, It's about the minority groups and quite rightly, that's why that's where change needs to happen, but in something like a layoff, it's a very human experience and we can't forget our majority demographics in that as well.
So the white. Male, probably straight middle class. The reason I say that is that there are many emotions that come with being laid off. It can be embarrassment, it can be anger, or a big one that the research shows in men is shame and shame is a very powerful and destructive emotion, particularly amongst a group of people who aren't as always open about talking about how they're feeling and working through that.
I think, you know, we see that in. Sadly, in the suicide rates amongst [00:12:00] men, men are three times more likely to commit suicide in the UK. In Australia, 75 percent of the annual suicides are men. So it actually, whilst we think about DI in our vulnerable groups as typically women, people of color, people with disabilities, neurodiverse, in this situation, actually, The white male, straight male is as potentially as vulnerable.
So in terms of that wraparound care, we have to take an individual approach, which will account for DI, but also not exclude anybody. You've just shared so much, you know, practical information here, Leanne. Thank you so much. That was really incredible. I think for a lot of us really understanding. That there are some very sort of concrete steps that we can take to make this process one that is much more human.
And I love that you reiterated that word a number of times, because it is something that tends to get lost in these kinds of decision making processes where the focus is on numbers. But, you know, particularly also from a reputational standpoint for organizations thinking of that bigger picture of how are we going to be performing six, 12 months down the line.[00:13:00]
That investment in making it sort of that wraparound experience where they really are taking care of individuals, both those. Who are leaving and those who are staying as human beings. It sounds like it's, you know, potentially quite a small investment for them to make, but something that can really reap rewards.
And we have, you know, so many examples, I think in the last few years of companies that have really got it wrong. And there are also a few examples of companies that do get it right in this instance where they, again, to highlight what you've said, that humanity, you're really acknowledging the humanity.
This is not where our relationship with you ends. We want you to thrive, even if it's not within our organization. Yeah. Yeah. And I think in terms of employer brand, there's so much damage you can do as a business. Even if you want to be super commercial about this, you know, it makes commercial sense to be human because this is going to be a very public affair, you know, people are going to talk about it.
People are going to talk about how it was handled. These people leaving your business are potentially your customers. [00:14:00] They might be people you want back in your business in the future. In terms of your employer brand, doing this wraparound care, even if you want to be cold and commercial about it, is going to be good for business.
But there's so much power that that those things can have and not feeling alone in that. moment, I've might been made redundant myself. And it's a, it's a real shocking experience. So to know that there is, because the immediate reaction is, well, what do I do now? And if someone's there going, this is what we do now, it just makes the transition so much easier.
Yeah. I couldn't agree more with that, Leanne. And interestingly, I've been through a redundancy process myself within an organization, and fortunately was one of the employees at the time who. Kept my job. I guess the experience of just knowing that it was coming and not knowing some of the thought process around what jobs would be retrenched and why was really quite scary.
And I felt at the time the communication was something that we didn't get a lot of, and as such, it created a lot of, you know, Almost [00:15:00] infighting in an organization, it felt like we had to prove ourselves. And therefore it kind of created this really cutthroat toxic culture in the meantime, where we were all trying to undermine each other to prove that we were worthy of retaining our jobs.
So, you know, in the implication in the meantime can be really, really awful to that culture as you've discussed. And I'd love if we can unpack this a little bit more, Leanne, like what are some of the pretty clear do's and don'ts that. Leaders need to be conscious of when going through that process.
You've mentioned this idea of the wraparound care for employees having that experience, but are there some really clear right and wrong things that they need to be doing through the process of that and how that's communicated to employees? The first thing I think as a business leader, if you've not been in this situation before, is just draw on your leadership skills, your executive skills.
That you have any way, this is essentially a very big organizational change and any organizational change, whether it be a digital transformation or layoffs requires a very robust change management process. It can't be haphazard. It can't be, we'll [00:16:00] see how we go. It needs to be planned out really, really carefully.
From the communications to the, what do you do once you've made those redundancies and you're left with the, you know, the people that remain and moving forward. So I think that's one mistake that organizations don't make. They don't have that change management process, the wrap around care to help before they start to execute the layoffs.
I think the second mistake people make is they'll try and go, Oh, we'll just make a few people redundant now and maybe that will fix a profitability problem and we'll make a few more people redundant in a few weeks time. The trouble with that slow approach is that it breeds ambiguity. It puts us all in our threat state for longer than we should be.
That's when we turn on each other, including our colleagues in this. infighting start, if you're going to do it, do it fast and it's brutal. And we see these organizations, you know, like Meta and Amazon and Google who are laying off tens of thousands of people at once, which sounds horrific, but actually it's the kindest way to do it because the quicker that process can be [00:17:00] executed, identify, communicating who is going to sadly leave the business, supporting them through that.
process, supporting the people who remain through that process and then being able to move forward as the organization that you then are, that is the most effective way you can protect culture, protect wellbeing, protect your employer brand. It's still going to be insanely disruptive, but it gives you much more chance of reaching stability faster and then moving forward.
So I think they're probably the main. Issues that leaders face or mistakes they make. And the third is probably within that, even if you do, you know, create a great change management process and you do execute it very quickly and efficiently, often leaders will forget about the people that are left behind.
And this is something that is. It's overlooked in a certain point because you know, as we know that there's a good risk that 30 percent of the people that remain are going to leave our business over the next 12 months unless we actually create a place where they want to be and re engage them in the mission of that organization.
The organization they worked in yesterday is not the organization they're in [00:18:00] now. So leaders need to re engagement in that mission. What's the next two to five years look like? What is your role in this mission delivery? Why we want you in our business. And recognizing from a psychological perspective, this person is going through a workplace trauma.
You know, it's that a survivor's guilt is real. That'll come with it. Why me? Yeah. Why? You know, that imposter syndrome will come as well. Like, Oh no, it shouldn't have been me. Bob is much better at doing that than I am. So even psychologically for the people that remain and you think as a leader, Oh boy, you should be happy about it.
Should be fine. I can be relieved and happy that I'm staying in my job. Whilst feeling guilty that I survived and others didn't, and this sense of imposter syndrome that, you know, maybe it shouldn't have been me. So I think also investing and it's the same wrap around care. It's the same, you know, having these conversations with people, supporting people through that, through that process.
Yeah. I think they're probably the three things that should be really considered if you're making some layoffs. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. That's really [00:19:00] helpful, Leanne. Yeah. And I just wanted to sort of hold space, I think. But one of the things that sort of came up for me as you were speaking was this sense of, you know, one of the most primary emotions that I think is occurring for people both who are leaving, but also those who are staying is this sense of fear that is a very natural consequence of the uncertainty.
And so any way that leaders can sort of mitigate those, you know, uncertainty, the ambiguity, The will we, won't we, so by, you know, making sure that things are communicated as optimally and clearly as possible. One thing that also struck me was. You know, potentially you spoke about the impact of shame for people who are being laid off and that intense feeling of sort of failure, self blame that can come about.
I wonder if also when organizations are able to do this in a way where there is perhaps a larger group being laid off at once, that that may even work to sort of reduce some of that sense of shame because it is something where it's not just me that's being laid off at once. It's not that sort of incremental decision making process.
And so perhaps there is some way that also leaders can be mindful of that in making that decision. [00:20:00] Empathy. Yeah. Empathy will get you so far as a leader and he is no exception in terms of layoffs. And I think it's empathy in terms of, we've seen some really great examples of empathy in the tech industry.
You know, Patrick Collison from Stripe made mass redundancies around the same time that Twitter did, that Elon Musk did very different approaches. Patrick Collison really, you know, took accountability, wrote an open letter saying that, I'm sorry. We messed up, you know, this is you, you trust us to protect the, you know, the financial health of the organization.
And we haven't done that. We overhired during COVID, you know, we haven't nailed that profit model as opposed to a growth model. This is the commercial reason behind it. We are so sorry. This isn't happening immediately. You will be identified as somebody who is going to be made redundant, but we're going to, you know, support you for the next three months.
We've got extra payments for people. We've got amazing wraparound care for people. And that in itself can just, as you say, it removes that, well, it's not my fault. Yeah. And not [00:21:00] internalize that external event as it's me. It's not actually, it's them. It's a leadership team that have messed up and they're taking accountability for that.
And then it just means that everything else they do after that comes with authenticity, comes with empathy. And that is just something that we need as humans to believe that somebody is being honest and working within our best interest. Otherwise we're still going to be in that threat state. It doesn't matter how well that is communicated.
We're still going to go into threat state. You know, our prefrontal cortex, the blood's going to rush away, it's going to rush to our amygdala, our emotional brain, we're going to not think clearly in a moment where we really are required to think clearly. So the best thing we can have in that moment is just somebody to hold a space for us and empathy is a really good way of doing that.
So we don't make any knee jerk reactions. We don't make any big decisions. We just have a space to go, wow, this is happening right now. And then as that dissipates and over time then yes, we can be more logical and more aware of the support we're getting. But the, yeah, I think [00:22:00] Patrick Collison was a really good example.
And in terms of what not to do, Elon Musk, that whole situation, Elon Musk is a monster. Make no mistake. He's a monster. Yeah. And how that was dealt with. Yeah. I don't even know how it's not criminal. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more there. It was so inhumane to send a mass email, basically giving people a timeframe to commit to certain ridiculous working conditions or get out like that, that just wild.
And then, then the cuts they went and made from there actually was quite speechless at the time. Even signing, even signing the communications. Yeah. Yeah. It was so bad that I didn't know if it was a joke. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the communication signed by Twitter. Unbelievable. Who are being locked out of their systems.
Being trolled by Elon Musk himself. Yeah. The man bought a sink and carried it into the Twitter head office, took someone to get a picture of him, just so he could say, I'm now CEO of Twitter. Let that sink in. Yeah. Like it's just. [00:23:00] And I understand if Elon Musk is not the people leader we need in that situation, but somebody needs to be.
And that's another good thought for anyone who is an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs personalities are awesome. They're risk takers, they're disruptors, they're the energy we often need in the world to drive positive change. But they're also not the most empathetic at times. They're not always the most patient and probably two things that are really required in that moment.
So it might be, if you are an entrepreneur or CEO, you kind of look and write, who's my number two that can lead this process? Cause I might not be the right person. Yeah. Yeah. And humility. I think. Yeah. The humility to acknowledge that an error has been made and, you know, really such a clear example of the sort of complete dehumanization that occurs when organizations treat humans as human capital and not as human beings.
So it's such a glaring, horrific, really example. To your point, you know, I really do hope that there is an increase in regulation and in sort of penalization of this kind of behavior, because it [00:24:00] really is just, it's not okay these today, 2024. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think what we can't forget in this conversation is that this is also really hard for leaders, leaders who are empathetic, leaders who are human centric, leaders who do want to create organizations that are awesome.
This will be as devastating for them. So we can't neglect that in this scenario and also encourage leaders who are going through this to get support through it, whether it be a consultant, whether it be a coach, whether it be talking to your therapist a bit more frequently. You know, keeping up with your routines, keeping those boundaries going, you know, being visible, being on the shop floor to say, well, you know, over Slack or Zoom and chatting to people.
This will be a really hard experience for any group leader or manager out there. So yeah, they also need our thoughts and our empathy and our support in that moment too. Yeah. That's a really important point, Leanne. And I guess to unpack a little bit more around some of these psychological impacts. You know, the experience I went [00:25:00] through when I was in an organization going through a redundancy, it was interesting, cause again, I was on the side of, of those who were left in the organization, but some of my really good friends and colleagues were some of the ones who were leaving.
And I think what struck me most is how differently that was received across the board at an individual level. And how, from what I feel like I was observing is that it almost took on you know, like the stages of grief. Like I recall colleagues who were in complete denial and then almost went into this state of trying to prove that they needed to stay, even though their sort of writing was on the wall.
And, and it was just so awful and so heartbreaking to watch. And I wonder if we can just take a moment to talk about this a little bit more. Like what are. Some of the psychological impacts to the individual who's on the receiving end of this experience and what are perhaps some strategies that they can use to take care of themselves through this process?
The five processes of grief is, is actually [00:26:00] talked about quite regularly in people that I coach or even in, you know, in the, in the literature across research. There's various debate about that as a model in itself and its application to layoffs but I think it's certainly something that people can identify with and I myself also experienced that was the model that for me gave me the vocabulary to talk about my experience when I was being made redundant.
I think that's a thing, you know, we can dig into the scientific validity of all these different models, but actually if it gives you some useful vocabulary to manage your emotions and your experiences in that moment, use it. If it's working, that's great. You know, that's what we want. One of the models that I really like, and I use with my clients who are going through this, any career transition, but particularly a redundancy is the, uh, Bridges change and transitions model.
A psychologist called William Bridges, who basically said that change is very fast. It's external, it's done to us and it's done without any control. The psychological transition we need to go through to accept that change. Is much, much slower. [00:27:00] And the more we understand that transition, the more effectively we're going to accept the change and move on.
So his model kind of separates into three stages. And I think the one that's probably most relevant here is what you were saying, Alexis, about, about grief and the first stage is ending. I think what a lot of leaders, individuals don't spend enough time on is ending one. part of their life. And particularly if that change has been done to you, can feel personal, you will, you know, that stage will be.
anger, it will be confusion, it will be fear, you know, and these emotions are really powerful emotions that need to be dealt with. And how are they dealt with? Well, talking about them actually is pretty good, whether it be in these peer support type groups that your organization do. Whether it be as an individual, if you have a coach or someone in your family or a friendship group that you can talk to, whether it be journaling about how you're feeling, you know, that transference in terms of actually writing, we've [00:28:00] seen in some cool neuroscience recently, even writing something down can switch the activity from our amygdala to our prefrontal cortex.
So just distance ourselves from that emotion. Such fascinating research. I love that. Yeah. It's really cool. Neuroscience is really cool. I'm loving some of the kinds of what's coming out now. And I think it's all to say that, you know, emotions, it can all sound a bit fluffy and all a bit like, suck it up, you know, toughen up.
Where's that resilience we're looking for? It's like, yes, but my body is also going through a very physiological reaction. that has been happening for millions of years of, you know, evolution. I can't just switch it off and I'm naive if I think I can do that. So I need to process these emotions because if I do that effectively and close that door on that chapter.
I'm going to be so much more successful and effective when I move on to exploring new opportunities to taking that, you know, that job that I always wanted to, whether it be setting up my own business, whatever it is. And what's really interesting as well is it's the same process for the people [00:29:00] that remain.
It's the same process for the leaders that are executing that redundancy. How do I acknowledge that this is a really sad ending and I need to manage this, go through that process, deal with these emotions. And put myself in a much more positive place to move forward. Because if we don't deal with that, it's destructive for months, years after that transition.
And I'm sure you've, I'm sure sadly, you know, anecdotally even spoke to people who went through maybe a bad redundancy and you hear a lot of bitterness, you hear a lot of blame, you hear a lot of negativity, that loss of optimism, that loss of hope. Yeah. And it's, that's the result of those initial emotions not being dealt with effectively.
Such an incredibly important point, Liana. I think it almost reminds me to some extent of the end of a personal relationship because, you know, there are also researchers who sort of frame these situations as an individual's relationship with their work that's then ended, you know, unilaterally. And having that time and really being honest about what [00:30:00] is coming up.
In a very courageous way, you know, I think there's a very natural response that we probably have to get very practical to do lists, got to get a new job and sort of focus on that. And that can be a healthy coping mechanism as well. Not to say that we shouldn't do that, but also being able to hold space in those safe environments, as you mentioned, whether it's a coach, a therapist, a family member, journaling, finding these ways of actually processing the physiological impact of what has happened to us is so important.
And I love that you also highlighted that for leaders and for these. Survivors, the people who stay in organizations, and this is going to date myself a little bit here, but I was actually in London on the day that Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008. And I was in the city, I'd just gotten a coffee and I was walking, I was very close to these, I think Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers, where people were literally walking out of the buildings, holding boxes of their possessions and crying on the streets.
And I'm even having a, like goosebumps as I think about this, cause there was almost sort of tangible emotion in the air. [00:31:00] And it is something that I think we underestimate, you know, as humans, the impact that it has on us. We try to sort of compartmentalize perhaps and think, Oh, well, I'll just get on with things.
But like so many things in life, if we don't take the time to really acknowledge that sadness, that fear, whatever is coming up, then we do ourselves a real disservice. So we may even miss an opportunity for some important growth. Yes. Absolutely. It's that. Yeah. I think we want to work with such speed and pace to fix the situation, don't we?
Yeah. Actually, we might be missing opportunities. I think what's interesting about what the, you know, the global financial crisis, you know, primarily hit, I mean, it hit everyone, but initially it was the finance industry that they kind of hit it more recently. We've seen the tech industry. I think what's interesting about organizations like that, when you're talking about, you know, icons of organizations.
Yeah. You know, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Google, Meta, you know, there is so much pride that comes of working with these organizations. It's so intertwined with our identity and sense of self that that being snapped [00:32:00] away from us is, is shocking. And we also need to take some time to untangle ourselves, particularly in a world, you know, 2008 was kind of like the real end.
You know, we don't get a job anymore for life. We don't just crack on until we retire with a, you know, a gold watch and 2. 4 kids. It doesn't work like that anymore. You know, I've made two teams redundant in my 15, 16 year career that really shows how volatile, you know, the economy is. And I think we're seeing these.
Attitude shifting as well from our millennials and Gen Zs in terms of, of not being so intertwined with their work. It's a part of what I do, but it's not who I am. And that's really healthy. And we're seeing some pushback from older generations, but actually that's a really healthy starting point and particularly, you know, probably their parents that were on the street crying when they got laid off from Lehman Brothers.
So I think for me, what also is a really great opportunity if you are in a situation where you you've been made redundant and you have some runway, some space to think about what do I want to do next? [00:33:00] What a gift. How often do we get to do that in a way that really that we have the time, the space for it and we can do it in a really.
you know, introspective way. There's a really great model called Vitals, um, by a psychologist called Selig. It's actually a psychologist called Dr. Audrey Tang, who introduced me to it. Her books, by the way, are phenomenal. She's written three, The Leader's Guide to Wellbeing, Resilience and Mindfulness.
They're so practical. If you have been recently made redundant, go and buy them. They're just self coaching and in three books, it's phenomenal. But one of the models that she uses in The Leader's Guide to Resilience is Vitals. And it's thinking about. your values, your interests, your temperament, your around the clock, the time of day you're most effective, your life goals and your strengths and mapping that, you know, reflecting on those and mapping out and then looking at your work and going, what does my work contribute to my vitals?
Does it align with my values? Is it that it's more my around the clock, it offers me more remote and flexible [00:34:00] opportunities? Is it it fits my life goals? And then looking at where else can I derive, have my vitals filled, fulfilled? Is it my community? Is it my relationships? Is it my hobbies? Is it my kids?
Is it, you know, what I like to do in my time? Is it learning? There are so many different ways to fulfill our needs as humans. That it doesn't always have to come from work. And if we can also find a way that our vitals are spread out across our lives, then it's going to be less risk. If something does change in any area of our life, we still have those sources of energy that we need to be fulfilled and contribute to our sense of self and identity, but it also means that when from a practical sentence, if you're looking at a job, You've almost kind of got yourself a little checklist of how suitable is this job for me?
You know, I want to work flexibly. This job doesn't allow it. I really believe in not harming the world. This company has a really poor reputation with environmental issues. It's almost then you're matching yourself [00:35:00] and is your nurse Sally. If we can match ourselves more effectively to the organization we're working for, you do build that level of collective and individual resilience that will help prevent burnout.
Literally taking the words out of my mouth there, Leigh. I think that very much that exact work. And it's really interesting. I was just going to say, as a burnout researcher, that those are the kind of steps, that understanding of ourselves that can really guide decisions that will, you know, empower us to prevent burnout from occurring.
And I would also just, you know, I went through that process in my mid thirties. I do think it's like, I would love to see these kinds of like the vitals, these sort of things being explored earlier in life, sort of part of education systems. I do suspect that, you know, younger generations are naturally.
Leading into that kind of introspection and self awareness, self understanding much more. And it's empowering them for really, you know, to make great decisions for themselves, very aligned, authentic decisions. Yeah, I think I'm going to raise my hand here. Yeah. As a millennial, I was just going to say, I'm going to raise my hand here.
Cause I feel like we kind of created the quarter life [00:36:00] crisis. Um, our generation very much entered, I think the workforce and certainly I was raised on sort of, I guess the notion that work ethic was really critical and loyalty to a company was really critical and learned very early on in my career that my loyalty and respect wouldn't always be matched from my, by the company I was working with.
And certainly through the redundancy process that I was involved in as well, realized that You know, trust and reliability are things that are earned and often they're not always there with company. So I think creating almost that safety net in our personal identity being something other than simply enmeshed with who we are when we're at work.
It was so, so, so critical. So I feel like I've almost sat on both sides of the fence there. And fortunately enough, you know, really early in my career, my quarter life crisis had the opportunity to reflect and think is what I'm doing actually fulfilling a greater purpose in my life than just bringing.
dollars into the bank and giving me a, you know, a [00:37:00] stasimple. It's an incredibly fascinating opportunity and we are seeing this more and in particular with younger generations. But it seems to be influencing everyone at the moment, which is, which is to see. I hope so. Yeah. I hope so. I'm an older millennial myself and I too had a quarter life crisis.
You're right. I love it. Gen Xer here, quarter life crisis, I, I'm sorry, sorry. Maybe I was just an early adopter, but yeah, I'm sorry. I think it is something that's, it's sort of reflective of, you know, a real shift I think in, in, uh, society towards not just the traditional way of looking at, at what work is, what it means to us.
There's a lot of, a lot of opportunity for people to sort of grow through these, through these challenging experiences as well. Leanne, I feel like we could chat all day about these really important topics for leaders, you know, redundancies, layoffs. The sort of the workplace and modern sort of work life itself, we could go on for days, but I would love to just ask one [00:38:00] final question.
And that is for everyone who's listening right now, what is the one sort of key thing that you would like people to understand or to take away from this conversation around layoffs and redundancies? It's devastating. It's devastating to your business, to your people, it is to their families, to their friends.
It is destructive. It is something that is. underestimated, I think, in terms of its impact commercially, personally, psychologically, individually, it has to be the last resort. It has to be find any other way for the sake of your business. If nothing else, find another way. And if you absolutely have to execute that decision with empathy, with humanity, the well structured change management process and try to remember that.
However, while you do this, this is still going to be a workplace trauma that all of your people experience and the more you can do to support them through that and yourself as a leader [00:39:00] through that, the quicker everyone is going to bounce back in and, you know, get back onto that, that road to thriving again, but please do not underestimate the level of disruption you're about to unleash on your business if you decide to make layoffs.
Well, Leanne, thank you so much. There is so much to do with it and we really appreciate you joining us on We Are Human Leaders today to share that with our audience. It's been an absolute pleasure having this conversation with you. Thank you so much. It has been a wonderful way to spend an hour. Thank you.
Thank you for joining us for this important conversation at We Are Human Leaders. If you'd like to up level your leadership or improve your workplace culture, reach out to us now at www. wearehumanleaders. com. See you next time.