Showing posts with label layoffs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label layoffs. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
How to Give Bad News
Tomorrow, I will sit down, one by one, with several members of my teaching staff and inform them that they will be getting a layoff notice next week. I am not treasuring this experience -- it certainly is not why I became a school administrator. These are the newest, most energetic, and in many cases most talented teachers in the school, who can least afford to lose their jobs because they make the least in the first place. Because I've known for a while that I am likely to have to do this, I've given a lot of thought to how to do it right. I know I'm not the only manager these days faced with this task, so I thought I'd share some basic rules to follow when you have to deliver bad news, no matter what that news is.
- Prepare and be prepared. If the news is at all forseeable, share that it's a possibility before it becomes a reality. We think we are doing people a favor by reassuring them that nothing bad will happen, but that's only true until something bad actually happens. People need time to process bad news, and a little expectation goes a long way. (For more on this, read my thoughts about preparing my staff for layoffs here.
- It's not about you. Very often, when you need to deliver bad news to someone else, you are also distressed by what has happened. It's easy to fall into the trap of talking about how incredibly hard this is for you. No matter how impacted you are yourself, however, when you deliver bad news that will seriously impact someone else, that interaction is about the other person, not you.
Here's a good example of what not to do: I worked as an office temp just after high school, and my first assignment was cut short. I was supposed to work for 6 weeks but they didn't need me after 4. This was not a big deal to me, since it just meant the agency would send me somewhere else. When the manager at the office where I was temping called me in to tell me, he began with, "This is probably the hardest job a manager has to do." And then he waited and didn't say anything else. I remember thinking that someone must have died, because I couldn't imagine what would be so awful that the manager couldn't bring himself to say it. Had he delivered the news and waited for my reaction, we both could have saved a lot of stress. Which brings us to our next rule . . .
- Let the reaction be your guide. You may be able to guess at how someone will react, but people do all kinds of strange things in the face of bad news. Be prepared for a colossal reaction or overreaction, but also for the possibility that they won't seem upset at all. This is particularly true with kids, whose reactions often are not the same at all as the adults around them. Thus, a kid who is heartbroken by the loss of a favorite piece of Lego can be completely unfazed by the death of a grandparent -- one is very real to him and one is not.
- Skip the platitudes and offer real help. "Everything's going to be OK" sounds better in your head than it probably does to the person receiving the news. On the other hand, if you can sincerely say, "I'm going to help you" or "I'm going to stay with you until you're OK" or the like, that's a measurable, observable piece of support.
- Be careful about leaving people alone. People who are seriously upset can easily faint, crash their car or hurt themselves intentionally. When in doubt, simply say, "I'm a little worried about leaving you alone. Who can I call? It will make me feel better." In this instance, making it about you may be a good strategy.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Arson and Layoffs in Flint
On March 24, the city of Flint, Michigan announced that it would be laying off 23 firefighters and 46 police officers the next day. Within minutes of the press conference, an arson fire broke out in a vacant building. In the nine days since, there have been nearly 40 such fires, including five last night alone. Three firefighters have been injured. Flint has asked for mutual aid, a system under which cities and towns agree to help each other in an emergency, from other county fire departments. Now those departments are starting to cancel their mutual aid agreements because they, too, are stretched thin.
No one knows for sure who is starting the fires. Many have speculated that they are a protest against the layoffs. Some have gone further and accused firefighters of setting them. The head of the firefighter's union has said he is truly insulted by that accusation, and that he does not believe the layoffs and the fires are connected at all. It is always possible that this is a horrible coincidence.
Layoffs can be very distressing to people in any profession. In a profession, like firefighting, where colleagues are closely knit, it is especially difficult. Unless you know or are a firefighter, it's difficult to imagine how much these men and women rely on each other and bond together. Layoffs represent a separation of one or members of, essentially, the family. It's a grotesque understatement to say that that is bad for morale.
On the other hand, you might expect that firefighters don't mind a string of fires. After all, putting out fires is what they do. Most firefighters will tell you, however, that while they like their work and are glad to be able to help the community, they don't actually want there to be a lot of fires. Like most emergency workers, they like being able to make a difference, but they wish they didn't have to. What's more, every fire represents a danger to the firefighters who respond. Any fire could become dangerous or even lethal. In that sense, every one of the arson fires in Flint is an intentional assault on the fire department.
In addition to the double-whammy of layoffs and the fires, we now have other departments saying that they will not come to Flint to help. I'm certainly not in a position to criticize those decisions -- every city has to do what makes sense for their people and their community. To the Flint fire department, however, this just adds insult to injury. People who go through critical incidents often feel helpless. The sense of not being able to do anything is horrible. Asking for help and not getting it greatly complicates the situation. Imagine someone who is assaulted in broad daylight while passersby ignore it. Their reaction may have as much to do with being ignored as with the assault. Now the Flint firefighters are being assaulted repeatedly, and neighboring cities are saying they will no longer help.
I don't know who's setting the fires in Flint, or what their motivation is. I will say that if they are motivated by support for the firefighters and protest of the layoffs, their actions are truly counter productive. They have taken a situation that would be hard under the best of circumstances, and escalated it severely. With friends like this, the firefighters in Flint sure don't need enemies.
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Meet the Quarterback
- Naomi Zikmund-Fisher
- is a clinical social worker, former school Principal and a Crisis Consultant for schools and community organizations. You can learn more about her at www.SchoolCrisisConsultant.com
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