A woman, anticipating an impending layoff, makes claims of sexual harassment against her supervisor and sends them off in an email to corporate headquarters. An investigation later determines the claims are unsubstantiated.
A terminated IT employee embeds a virus into the company's computer system--timed to go off two weeks after his departure so it wouldn't look like he did it.
An employee--permitted to pack up his belongings after being terminated--flips a switch behind a panel that everyone else had forgotten about and shuts down the business' operations for about three days, while company leaders try to address what they thought was a "virus."
These are all actual examples of employee sabotage and retaliation that took place after terminations. In the tense environment of layoffs, cost cutting and lost retirement, the pressure is on Human Resources (HR) to get wise to the risks and prevention strategies.
"Companies should recognize that people are very, very tied into their jobs and that, while this [letting someone go] might be an economic decision for the company, it has very, very real emotional consequences for the workers," says Merrily Archer, a labor and employment attorney in the Denver office of Fisher & Phillips. "[Employers] have to expect that there is going to be a subset of their workforce or the people they're laying off who are not going to respond particularly well."
The dismal economy may be driving your HR manager to drink.
That's one finding in a recent survey of 372 human resources professionals by industry publication Workforce Management.
Asked about their experiences in conducting layoffs, HR professionals said they:
50% have suffered from sleeplessness
35% have considered changing careers
23% have occasionally used a "substance" to cope
Close to a quarter of those polled said they used alcohol, cigarettes, or recreational drugs to cope with the layoffs, pay cuts and furloughs they must administer.
Little wonder. At work, HR employees sit at the epicenter of a recession's bad news. Armed with the requisite box of tissues, they're present at tearful layoff meetings. They field angry calls about slashed 401(k) programs and do the dirty work of following through on terminations. And while they often have no part in decisions to slash jobs, they are linked with layoffs in the minds of employees. "If every time someone sees you, they associate you with the angel of unemployment, that can be acutely distressing," says Ben Dattner, a New York organizational psychologist.
Then there's the burden of knowing that worse news is looming, says Gabriela Cora, a psychiatrist who runs the Miami-based Executive Health & Wealth Institute. "The company may tell people, 'This is the only layoff we're doing,' but [HR] may know more are coming."
By now, says Dave Ulrich, an HR specialist and University of Michigan professor, many staffs "are stretched to the risk of burnout." Yet only 9% in the Workforce Management poll say they turn to the very services they promote on the job: employee assistance programs.
Sources: BUSINESSWEEK, July 27, 2009 and Human Resource Management, July 2009