How to Work Without Losing Your Mind by Cate Sevilla

Author:Cate Sevilla [Sevilla, Cate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241439678
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2020-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

Telling someone they no longer have a job is, well, terrible

Most managers, certainly those with higher levels of emotional intelligence and empathy, never want to have to make anyone redundant or unemployed. Firing someone is nearly always an absolute last resort. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s the only option available if a person’s behaviour is completely unacceptable. Even redundancies are invariably tricky (unless they’re voluntary), because they, too, are forced by business reasons, such as budget and structure, and are usually at the instruction of those at the top of the company pyramid. It all sucks, basically.

I’ve had to make several people redundant, and even fire some in my time as a manager. Without exception, they were long, stressful, admin-filled, uncomfortable processes that nobody emerged from feeling good.

Once, as part of a new role, almost my first task was to restructure the existing team. Let me tell you – if you’re new to a business and you have to introduce yourself by making long-serving staff members redundant … it’s not fun. It doesn’t exactly make for a settled team, either, but sometimes big changes are necessary for future growth.

This process was made more difficult than was probably necessary by the intense, visceral reaction to the news of one of the victims. They were appalled, furious, if not completely disgusted that I would have the audacity to render their position redundant. Which, you know, I get. I didn’t expect them to love it, or even necessarily understand it, but their vitriolic reaction blew me away. Despite having only been at the company a very short time, I was accused of some pretty dreadful stuff by this person, and had to read through seething, threatening letters to me drawn up by their lawyer. I knew it was the right decision to be making for the business, and for the team going forward, but the way this person looked and spoke to me during the meetings throughout their consultation period was unlike anything I had ever known. Throughout the process, I had to bite my tongue and be as professional as possible – even when, during the particularly tough meeting in which we broke the bad news, I looked over to see that the HR representative who was there to help me with the process was obliviously drinking tea from a mug that read, ‘SORRY NOT SORRY’ in an obnoxiously twee font. Thankfully, this went unnoticed by anyone else, but I was mortified.

Going through the redundancy process as a manager is definitely rough, but once you get through it, you’ll then know what it’s like. You’ll have the experience, and you’ll be better prepared for it the next time it happens. I once worked with a new manager who was issuing redundancy notifications for the first time in his career. He was really unsettled, completely freaked out by it. Before and after his first such meeting, he kept saying things like: ‘Oh god, I can’t believe I’m doing this. What are they going to do

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