For some people workplace cutbacks can have unexpected and positive outcomes, writes ORNA MULCAHY
THERE IS an upside to the downturn, as my friend Lisa (not her real name for reasons that will become apparent) has discovered.
Although the Government is about to plunder her pay packet, Lisa is in excellent form. She’s taken to wearing bright colours and high heels and singing snatches of opera. The reason: a colleague with whom she didn’t get along has left the company, taking her negative vibes with her, along with a nice sign-off cheque, a bunch of flowers and a voucher for a day spa. This latter item, Lisa feels, rightly belongs to her since spending so many years in this woman’s company has cost her a fortune in compensatory therapies. Now she is having regular Reiki massage to rid herself of the residual negative aura.
Their close working relationship had grown so toxic that one or other of them would take sick leave for weeks at a time, a situation their boss clearly despaired of solving. Company structures changed all around them, and they were left to their own devices in a tiny office with a clock her colleague consulted every time Lisa left or entered the room.
According to Lisa, she couldn’t sleep at night, mulling over the passive aggressive behaviour. She became fat and depressed.
Or course this is just one side of the story. No doubt the woman on the other side is feeling equally relieved to have been unshackled from her former partner in work. Perhaps she felt equally trapped and desperate. After all she was the one to give up her job, an outcome that career guidance experts will tell you is sometimes the only way to resolve a situation that may be damaging one’s morale and health.
Who knows what the root problem was. Perhaps there was only one real job to be done, and two people, with very different styles, fighting over how best to do it. As far as the company is concerned, did the right person leave? These are tricky questions that don’t bother Lisa in her newly de-cluttered space, queen now of all she surveys.
Another friend, who works in the public service is not so lucky. She finds herself second in command to a lazy individual who passes all the difficult cases down the line and spends more time planning short breaks and long holidays than tackling departmental issues. He uses light banter and fancy footwork to avoid difficult calls and is generally gone by 3pm on Fridays. He ignores the roster and hogs all the bank holiday weekends, leaving colleagues to fume among themselves.
When my friend goes on holiday, she returns to a pile of paperwork that, by rights, should have been signed off by him but which he leaves for her to “cast her eye over”. This plunges her into a homicidal rage thus cancelling out the benefit of the holiday. Need I say he’s a handy golfer?
However, as Obama might say, there are glimmers of hope. Like many a senior civil servant he is tempted by early retirement, fearful of more cutbacks to come, or worse a tax on his lump sum. He spends a lot of time on the calculator, totting up allowances. Fingers are crossed for his departure.
The downturn has brought these dysfunctional relationships in the workplace into sharper focus. Difficult colleagues, who may have been tolerated, or simply ignored in good times are now on the radar of managers faced with budget cuts and having to force through redundancies. In the good times, matters could be fudged and ineffectual people sidelined but that’s a luxury companies can no longer afford. Of course these workers may now be labelled as difficult or ineffectual simply because they are surplus to requirements. When times are flush, expenditure rises to meet income and people are taken on to do all sorts of jobs that are no longer needed when prospects are lean.
Managers are now having to account for their overspending, and for the tough decisions that they didn’t make during the good years, the results of which are now coming back at them in the form of a bloated or complacent staff, and quirky working practices that are now proving a serious drag on productivity. These are issues that have to be tackled, if the manager wants to stay in business, and earn respect from the bottom up. Young workers who are ready to give a job their all, as well as diligent middle-ranking folk who get along just fine with each other, will want to see lazy or absentee colleagues brought to account. Faced with a combination of pay cuts and higher taxes, they may be grateful to have a job and prepared to work harder still, but only if slackers are tackled.
For some, downsizing the company is a relief. Managing directors who previously had a large staff, but are now down to a team of two or three, will tell you that, actually, they are enjoying getting back to basics.
“We’ve had the luxury of having staff to do everything that needed doing,” one director of a drastically downsized firm told me this week. “Now senior people are back doing the things they were originally trained to do. It’s tough, but it’s less complicated.”