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Employee Morale After Downsizing

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Employee Morale After Downsizing
Employee Morale After Downsizing Downsizing has become a significant idea in today 's economy and maintaining the trust of employees when something like this takes place has also become very serious business (Brockner, Konovsky, Cooper-Schneider, Folger, Martin, & Bies, 1994). The question is not whether a company should downsize their employees but how to do the downsizing properly so that as few employees as possible are injured (Brockner, Konovsky, Cooper-Schneider, Folger, Martin, & Bies, 1994). There are several ways that companies can downsize that will help retain much of the loyalty of the workers that remain (Brockner, Konovsky, Cooper-Schneider, Folger, Martin, & Bies, 1994).
Companies who downsize through attrition and buyouts, those companies that work to help downsized employees find new jobs, and companies that are willing to provide outplacement services to those individuals often end up in positions that are much better than companies that simply fire workers due to downsizing (Brockner, Konovsky, Cooper-Schneider, Folger, Martin, & Bies, 1994). These companies who show that they care about the workers that they have to remove through downsizing have a much greater chance of retaining a lot of the loyalty originally given to them by the workers that survived the downsizing (Brockner, Konovsky, Cooper-Schneider, Folger, Martin, & Bies, 1994).
Trust is a very important asset for these companies but it is very difficult to achieve and just as difficult to hold on to (Brockner, Konovsky, Cooper-Schneider, Folger, Martin, & Bies, 1994). If companies are willing to downsize in a way that is considered to be very humane by many of the workers these companies will fare better in the long-term than companies who perceive workers as disposable (Brockner, Konovsky, Cooper-Schneider, Folger, Martin, & Bies, 1994). Late in the 1970s, companies began to downsize workers (Brockner, Konovsky, Cooper-Schneider, Folger, Martin, & Bies, 1994). They



Cited: Brockner, J., Konovsky, M., Cooper-Schneider, R. Folger, R., Martin, C., & and Bies, R.J. (1994). Interactive Effects of Procedural Justice and Outcome Negativity on Victims and Survivors of Job Loss. Academy of Management Journal, 37, 397-409. Brockner, J., Tyler, T.R., & Cooper-Schneider, R. (1992). The Influence of Prior Commitment to an Institution on Reactions to Perceived Unfairness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37, 241-261 Cole, J Daft, R.L. &Lewin, A.Y. (1993). What Are the Theories for the 'New ' Organizational Forms? Organizational Science, 4, i-vi Davidow W.H Hirschhorn, L. & Gilmore, T. (1992). The New Boundaries of the 'Boundaryless ' Company. Harvard Business Review, 70: 104-115. HR Paints a Bleak Portrait of Downsizing Survivors. (1993). HR Focus, 70, 24. If You Are Going to Downsize, Says U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Do It Gently. Interview, (1996). Sales & Marketing Management, 148, 118-123. Kets de Vries M.F.R. & Balazs, K. (1997). The Downside of Downsizing. Human Relations, 50, 11-50.

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