Funeral for a Job
By Laurel Hyatt
On the scale
of life's most stressful events, losing a job is close to the top, along with losing a loved one. Experts even compare what happens when one is laid off or fired with the grieving process one goes through after someone close dies.
Especially with recent corporate downsizings, it's important for the affected employees, as well as managers and HR departments, to understand what happens when the cord connecting someone to their employer is cut forever, advocates say.
"The depth of the stress is tantamount to somebody losing a loved one. It's like a death in the family and at the same time, everybody is identified with what they do at work and where they work. It's their own personal identity," says Robert Tramov, president of Toronto-based Head Start Employment Transition Services, which helps terminated people deal with job loss and get back on their feet with new work.
The transition from employment to unemployment and back to work again is not an easy one for many people. Toronto employment lawyer Bram Lecker saw so many clients in tears when they lost their jobs, and so vengeful to go after their former employers, that he wrote an article titled "Funeral for a Job," in which he details the emotional strain that dismissed employees face, and how employers should use outplacement services and treat departing workers humanely to lessen the damage to their pocketbooks and reputations.
Stages of mourning
Just like when a loved one dies, the first reaction of someone losing their job is often shock and disbelief.
"First there's the feeling that the wind is knocked out of your sails. The first question is, 'what am I going to do for income? I must have done something terrible to have been terminated like this,'" says Manny Heisel, who's been a social worker nearly 40 years and counsels Head Start clients to help them deal with stress and emotions.
"In spite of the fact that some companies lay off thousands for economic reasons, it's hard to believe that there isn't something wrong with you," says Heisel, based in Richmond Hill, Ont.
This initial trauma can last quite a while, given work's importance in today's society, Heisel says. "People spend a good eight hours a day and sometimes a lot more in their employment. It gives them a sense of meaning, a sense of belonging, a sense of their own value," Heisel points out. "When it's suddenly cut out from under them, they just don't know which way to turn. It's like they've lost their life for a while. It does provide a tremendous shock to them, there's no doubt about it."
The second stage of mourning for a lost job is denial, Heisel says. Similar to when someone dies, people think, "No, it hasn't happened, it can't have happened. It's impossible," he says.
"Then it may turn into anger in the next phase. You're angry that this has happened to you, that you have lost this position, angry at everybody around you, angry at those 'dumb people' who employed you, perhaps. How could they do this? How could they be so short-sighted, how could they be so wrong?" Heisel explains.
Tramov can relate personally to the anger stage. He once worked in the financial industry and was laid off from a senior position after four years' service in a company that was bought out. "It felt as if the majority of your identity was ripped away from you," he recalls.
"In essence the feeling was, 'My god, I've done wonderfully for these people. Why me? Geez, doesn't anybody care about the 60-hour weeks I've put in? Does anybody count the fact that I've neglected my family to a degree? Does anybody count the fact that I went that extra mile when I was asked to?'", Tramov recounts.
Mixed with anger is a feeling of "why me?" Tramov certainly wondered what happened to him when he was laid off. "Why did they let me go? All reports were I was doing a great job."
People then turn inwards and blame themselves, thinking maybe their job loss was their fault, Heisel says.
The aftershocks of the initial layoff or firing can include a sense of separation from your former co-workers, which some people have a hard time handling, Heisel says. "After you've been home for a while, you start wondering, 'Where are all my fellow employees? Why do I not hear from them? Have I become poisonous? Have I changed? Is there something about me that was wrong?' Because they're part of your life, too."
Former co-workers may fear bad luck can rub off on them, or that if they have any contact with dismissed employees, that they could lose their positions too, Heisel says.
His clients feel betrayed by former colleagues who don't stay in touch. "It's very surprising. You hear such phrases as, 'Now I know who my friends are or aren't. So-and-so and I were so close and now I can't talk to them. They're obviously two-faced.' It's frustrating, it's hard to understand for them. They feel a loss, they feel disappointed, they wonder about other people, they wonder about humanity itself. They wonder what peoples' values really are if they can just cut them out like that."
Eventually, though it may take many months, terminated people are ready to move on with their lives, he says.
"They start being a little more ready to look at it objectively, which is what you hope to do, becoming a little more realistic. Yes, it's happened, but there's still a future out there. These things can happen. There are fewer guarantees that your job is going to last a lifetime, it just isn't," Heisel says.
Seeking revenge
Somewhere in the angry phase, employees who've been let go can sometimes seek revenge against their former employers by turning to the legal system. But they're often disappointed, Lecker says.
The longer someone has been at a company, the more they feel entitled to a big severance package, the lawyer told Workplace Today. But there's a huge gap between what people feel they're owed and what the law provides. People who had sacrificed time with their children, their weekends, and even moved to a new city for their employer often feel, "'I gave all this loyalty and now I want something back,'" Lecker says. "The law says, on the other hand, well, you've got to live with it."
The law is especially tough on people who've found new work relatively soon, legally called mitigating the damage. Though the pain of losing their former position hasn't gone away, their right to compensation has. "They don't understand that because they think, maybe justifiably, they should be compensated just for losing their job. Whereas the law says, 'We will only protect you and compensate you for the amount of time that you're out of income,'" Lecker points out.
Still, the law puts a suit of armour around employees who were wrongfully dismissed, so employers must be very careful when terminating. In today's legal climate, "There is no better time to sue one's former employer," Lecker wrote in his article. "Nearly 40 years of litigation has produced a definitive and reliable regime that presently leans heavily in favour of the wrongfully dismissed employee, the only truly innocent litigant."
(As a rule of thumb, terminated employees are generally awarded one month's salary for each year of service, plus employment benefits, at a minimum, Lecker wrote.)
Being suddenly out of work is also hard on people who've been at an organization for a fairly long time, say, 10 years, and have built up loyalty to their employer but who are young enough that the law considers them employable and that they should find a job fairly quickly. They fall through the cracks and generally aren't awarded generous notice periods.
"If you spend 15 years with a company, that becomes your home. Out you go and you find the first possible thing. You take a step back in salary, you got mortgage payments and what not. These people are never the same because they feel an enormous amount of resentment that the company has put them through this," Lecker says.
Turfed employees can often suffer a host of emotional problems because most times, Lecker says, terminations are no-fault, meaning if the employer provides the minimum legal notice period, it doesn't have to give a reason why the person was let go and the former employee can't sue for wrongful dismissal.
It would be like someone losing a loved one and receiving an insurance payout, but never finding out how they died. There's no closure.
When Tramov lost his job years ago, finances were top of mind. "Whether you get a great package or not, it makes no difference, the fact is it's that sense of despair: 'Oh my god, I have to go out there and find another job,'" he remembers.
In instances where Lecker's clients sued and won larger awards, the compensation couldn't undue the emotional damage, he says. "They would grudgingly take the money and it wouldn't be enough. What they really wanted was somehow the acknowledgement that they were still good and still OK. And you realize to yourself that these people must have had a serious emotional blow, that the money wouldn't help." That's when Lecker refers people to counselling, to help them get on with their lives.
Moving forward
Even people who find another job quickly still need someone to talk to so they don't harbour lingering resentment, Heisel says. "It can be a major, major thing and they've got to have counselling after, I really feel it's the only thing."
This can be hard for top executives who feel they must be strong to weather the storm on their own. Senior positions take longer to find, which means terminated executives have to deal with their mourning and grief even longer, yet they're often reluctant to seek help.
"Perhaps they feel that society has programmed them to believe that they have to be able to cope with everything themselves or else they're somehow a not very effective individual rather than the social beings that we really all are," Heisel surmises.
Counselling has to teach them they can't handle everything on their own, Tramov says. "It's usually the middle management to senior executive who betrays the feeling, 'I'm the rock, I'm solid, even though I've been terminated, I can handle it.' But once they talk to the therapist, it turns out that no, they are emotionally hurt. They are mentally stressed. One day you're vice-president or you're a senior manager or supervisor of a corporation and the next day, you're in their minds a nobody," Tramov says.
Only about 1% of Head Start's clients don't take stress counselling, Tramov says.
Economics often forces laid-off or fired people to look for work right away, which doesn't give them much time to grieve. Therapy is stressful enough, but "most people have to go out and find (another job) within the next month," Tramov says.
Pride may impede former senior executives who have to find work. It may take them longer to get another position because they're quite particular. "They feel it's not challenging enough or people would think that they've slipped if they take a 'lesser position.' Perhaps the first thing they look for is to duplicate the job they had before. And that can be very difficult to do," Heisel says.
It's easy for terminated people to feel victimized, but it's essential they take control of the situation, Heisel says. They should turn their perceived weaknesses into strengths, learn new skills, even take their career path in a different direction.
After Head Start provides psychological counselling to clients, they're given job counselling as well.
They're assessed as to what kind of job they're looking for, and whether they want to try a new career or become self-employed. Tramov says about 40% of his clients have chosen to go into business for themselves, many of them consulting for their former employers.
Head Start clients are shown how to market themselves, and not just to their extensive contact list. Tramov sees too often the mistake of jobseekers not targeting their hunt. "I think what they're doing is they're shooting out rTsumTs and saying, 'Hey, Charlie, if you hear of something, can you give me a call?'"
Preventative medicine
Those who counsel people who've lost their jobs wish employers would do more to prevent former employees from becoming the walking wounded.
Naturally, Tramov promotes employment transition services to employers who are downsizing or firing. "If an employer doesn't provide outplacement services, they are opening themselves up. It makes good economic sense. It also allows the former employee to speak well of the company and I don't know of any company that wants bad publicity."
Outplacement is particularly helpful to older workers, Tramov says. "Today, we see that individuals who really do require outplacement services are usually in their 40s and 50s and in today's job market, if you're 40 years old, you're considered old."
Besides laying the groundwork to earn a reputation as humane employers for when they eventually hire again, firms should provide outplacement to avoid costly legal battles, Tramov recommends. "Any company that doesn't use outplacement is truly going to find itself continually swamped with litigation or pre-litigation or accusations."
The sooner a former employee finds another job, the less money the employer has to pay in compensation (due to the mitigation doctrine), Lecker points out, so it's to an organization's benefit to help terminated people land on their feet. Lecker cites an Ontario Court of Appeal decision that "substantially reduced" the damages an employer had to pay because it helped a dismissed employee find another job and "conducted the termination in a humane and sensitive manner." Giving someone half an hour to clear their desk and be escorted out by a security guard would not likely sit well with the courts.
Heisel suggests employers take a course on how to terminate humanely. "I think many employers probably just don't know how to terminate. They don't like having to do it and yet they feel they have no choice so maybe after a while they take the tough business-like approach," he says.
"They feel that they're just an employee, just a cog in the wheel, what do I have to worry about, we'll give them the minimum, and out they go. But you're dealing with people," Heisel says. "Think in terms of your employees as human beings, just as you are a human being, and say, 'Now what would I want if it happened to me?' Let's recognize their humanity, let's provide support for them."
Heisel also cringes when he hears clients say that soon after they were laid off in a cold manner, their former employer offered them to reapply for new positions opening up, showing a lack of planning and foresight. No one wants to return after being let go, he says.
Employers should pay for employment transition services for all employees, even administration staff, and not just senior managers and executives, Lecker says. They should also extend coverage under the Employee Assistance Program for the length of their notice period, he recommends.
And if employers don't voluntarily offer outplacement services, Lecker often negotiates that as part of settlements, he says.
The lawyer has also negotiated training courses paid for by organizations for terminated employees, again to help them find work faster and ultimately reduce their notice periods.
Lecker also urges employers to provide letters of reference to departing employees, something he's had to fight for with clients who worked for organizations with policies banning such letters, even for long-term employees. He finally won a letter for someone who'd worked for such a firm for 28 years. "They've got to at least walk away and know that their services have been appreciated," Lecker says.
Heisel hopes that younger workers coming up the career ladder are being taught to expect to have several jobs during their working lives, so they're better prepared for an eventual layoff.
In some ways, the younger generation has already mourned the passing of lifelong employment, which should help them grieve should they ever be out of work.
No matter the age, terminated employees need to get on with their careers, Tramov says. "If we say that outplacement is the funeral director, what we're there for, as I see it, is to bury the past and work with you in gaining the future."
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