Over the last few weeks, I have been hearing about many friends of mine that have been laid off in the ongoing restructuring of the company I work for. I will not pretend to understand the rationale behind at least half of the people being let go. For all I know, they may be pulling names out of a hat and I have been lucky. It is unfortunate that I, and many others, have been living in a communications black hole for the last two months.

If you studied psychology or human resources, you have heard about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The one where your primary needs are food, clothing, shelter and sleep. Then, you get in to the secondary needs, which have to do with personal security, financial security and morality. So, in essence, we are talking about a higher level of stress due to uncertainty in our situations. Next, you will notice that the third level has to do with Love / Belonging. So, to sum up with my life as it is now, I am uncertain about my job, so a secondary level of need that is not entirely being met, and a third level need not being met, because I do not know which team I belong in and how I will belong.

Overall, I know the reasons for all the secrecy surrounding who will be let go and when, but for those of us who remain, we are being stressed in several ways that will have to be dealt with when all is said and done. I think it would be reasonable for senior management to assume there will be an adjustment period for everyone. It will be interesting to see how the new leadership deals with this. It will also be interesting to see how the team pulls together or apart as a result.

Well, back to “work”.

Stay interested and interesting!

John